High

Order
Think
ing
Skills
(H.O.
T.S )

Module 1
What is High
Order
Thinking?

Introduction
For decades, public schools prepared children to be good citizensand good factory workers.
Students were expected to sit, listen, and do exactly as they were told.
In some respects, this model served high school graduates well since they learned to follow
directions in ways that would be valuable to their future employers.
What is High Order Thinking ?
Appropriate teaching strategies and learning environments that facilitate growth in student
thinking skills in area of critical, logical, reflective, meta-cognitive, and creative Thinking
This definition is consistent to how higher order thinking skills are learned and developed.
Although different theoreticians and researchers use different frameworks to describe higher
order skills and how they are acquired, all frameworks are in general agreement concerning
the conditions under which they prosper.
Higher Order Thinking Essentially means thinking that takes place in the higher level of
hierarchy in the cognitive processing.
While lower-order thinking is more easily defined as mastering facts (such as being able to
describe the Water Cycle)

or completing a task with specific steps (such as being able to solve a two-variable
equation), that study ultimately describes higher-order thinking as thinking that is (or
involves), that study ultimately describes

Module: 2
Why HigherOrder
Thinking

Why High order Thinking?

As economic and technological changes shape the occupational outlook of todays
students, schools have begun to embrace the need to instill higher-order thinking
to prepare the 21st century workforce.
No longer is it enough for high school graduates simply to know basic facts and skills.
To be successful, students must master decision-making, prioritizing, strategizing and
collaborative problem solving.

Although most teachers learned about Bloom's Taxonomy, many seldom challenge
students beyond the first two levels of cognition: knowledge and comprehension.
Because most jobs in the 21st century will require employees to use the four highest
levels of thinkingapplication, analysis, synthesis, and evaluationthis is
unacceptable in today's instructional programs. We must expect students to operate
routinely at the higher levels of thinking.

Blooms Cognitive Taxonomy

In 1948, Benjamin Bloom led a team of educational psychologists that met to discuss
classroom activities and what goals teachers should have in mind when designing
activities for their students (Bloom, 1956).
Blooms aim was to promote higher forms of thinking in education, such as analyzing
and evaluating, rather than just teaching students to remember facts (rote learning).

Three domains of Learning

Learning was divided into three domains of educational activity
Cognitive:
mental skills (Knowledge)
Affective:
growth in feelings or emotional areas (Attitude or self )
Psychomotor:
manual or physical skills (Skills)
While Blooms Taxonomy is not the only framework for teaching thinking, it is the
most widely used, and subsequent frameworks tend to be closely linked to Blooms
work
Blooms Cognitive Taxonomy
While all three domains are important for a rounded person, it is the first domain ,
Cognitive that is the subject of (H.O.T.) The Cognitive domain involves knowledge and
the development of intellectual skills. It is generally accepted that each behavior needs
to be mastered before the next one can take place. This is useful knowledge in
assisting teachers/ lecturers in their lesson planning
Cognitive Domain
It involves student knowledge. It also involves the development of intellectual attitudes and
skills

Bloom and his associates ranked student cognitive abilities in the cognitive domain
from simple to the most complex into six categories. These categories are
Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. This
ranking is known as Bloom's Taxonomy. This system is generally easily understood
and applied

MODULE 3
BLOOMS
TAXANOMY

Blooms Taxonomy knowledge

Bloom defines the lowest level of student ability as "knowledge." This category
involves simple knowledge of dates, events, places, facts, terms, basic concepts, or
answers. Students aren't required to use this information in any practical way.
They're simply asked to recall previously learned material.
Knowledge is the lowest level of the scale. It involves nothing more than information
observation and recollection. Nevertheless, Bloom found that over ninety-five percent
of the activities students encountered required thinking at only this level. Even
today, much of the software used in schools is of the "skill and drill" sort. This sort
uses repetitive, flashcard-like mechanisms to help students retain and regurgitate
facts. Knowledge task words are "name," "define," "tell," "list," and "quote."

Blooms Taxonomy- 2.Comprehension

The second level of student ability is called "comprehension." Comprehension
requires students to demonstrate an understanding of the information.
Students may show this by summarizing main ideas, translating a mathematical word
problem to numbers, or by interpreting charts or graphs. Students go further with the
information than simply recalling it. Comprehension task words are "predict,"
"summarize," "translate," "associate," "translate," and "estimate."

Blooms Taxonomy- 3.Application

"Application" is the third level of ability. It's observed when students use methods,
theories, or concepts in new situations. Students don't simply interpret a graph.
Instead, they may construct a new graph using the data. Or, they may use a learned
formula to solve an equation. The key emphasis is that students use an abstract idea,
theory, or principal in a new, concrete situation to solve a problem. Application task
words are "solve," "complete," "calculate," "apply," and "illustrate."

Blooms Taxonomy- 4.Analysis

Bloom calls the fourth level of ability "analysis." Analysis requires the student to
examine and break information down into parts. The student uses these parts to
interpret and understand its meaning.
This level requires students to "read between the lines," make inferences, and find
evidence to support generalizations. This is a more advanced level. It mandates that
the student see the big picture. The student must distinguish between facts and
inferences while evaluating the relevancy of data. Constructing an outline from a
reading passage is an example of analysis. Analysis task words are "separate,"
"order," "classify," "arrange," "analyze," and "infer."

Blooms Taxonomy- 5.Synthesis

"Synthesis" is the fifth level of student ability. It deals with putting together parts to
form a new whole. This may involve putting ideas together in a creative new way. It
may also involve using old ideas to come up with new ones. Writing a poem, giving a
well-organized speech, or proposing a plan for a new experiment would involve
synthesis. The student takes information from several areas and combines it to
create a new structure. Synthesis task words are "integrate," "design," "invent,"
"modify," "formulate," and "compose."

Blooms Taxonomy- 6.Evaluation

"Evaluation" is the sixth and highest level of student ability. This level requires the
student to perform two simultaneous tasks. First, the student must present and
defend opinions. Second, the student must make judgments about the value of
material and methods.
Students compare and discriminate between ideas. They recognize subjectivity. They
judge the adequacy with which conclusions are supported by data. The rubric, or
evaluation criteria, may be given to the student. Or, the student may devise it. The
evaluation level is considered the highest since it incorporates elements of all the
other levels. It also requires the student to add a conscious value judgment based on
clearly defined criteria. Evaluation task words are "assess," "convince,"
"discriminate," "test," "recommend," and "judge."

Module 4
COMPARING
BLOOM TAXANOMY
AND HIGH ORDER
THINKING

Overall, higher-order thinking means handling a situation that you have not
encountered before and is generally recognized as some combination of the above
characteristics
It is thinking that happens in the analysis, synthesis, and evaluation rungs of Blooms
ladder.
By contrast, lower-order thinking is simple, reflex-like, transparent, and certain.

Higher order thinking skills are grounded in lower order skills such as discriminations,
simple application and analysis, and cognitive strategies and are linked to prior
knowledge of subject matter content.

Why Higher-Order Thinking

Although most teachers learned about Bloom's Taxonomy, many seldom challenge
students beyond the first two levels of cognition: knowledge and comprehension.
Because most jobs in the 21st century will require employees to use the four highest
levels of thinkingapplication, analysis, synthesis, and evaluationthis is

unacceptable in today's instructional programs. We must expect students to operate

routinely at the higher levels of thinking.

Module: 5
SKILLS FOR HIGH
ORDER THINKING

High Order Thinking (H.O.T.) Skills

Higher order thinking skills include Critical Thinking skills which are logical,
reflective, meta-cognitive and creative. They are activated when individuals
encounter unfamiliar problems, uncertainties, questions, or dilemmas.
Applications of the skills result in Reasoning, Evaluating, Problem solving, Decisions
making & Analyzing products that are valid within the context of available knowledge
and experience that promote continued growth in these and other intellectual skills.

Wise judgment in Critical Thinking

In critical thinking, being able to think means students can apply wise judgment or
produce a reasoned critique. The goal of teaching is then to equip students to be
wise by guiding them towards how to make sound decisions and exercise reasoned
judgment. The skills students need to be taught to do this include: the ability to
judge the credibility of a source; identify assumptions, generalisation and bias;
identify connotation in language use; understand the purpose of a written or spoken
text; identify the audience; and to make critical judgments about the relative
effectiveness of various strategies used to meet the purpose of the text.

Module: 6
TEACHING H.O.T.S

Why Do We Want to Teach Higher-Order Thinking?

Knowledge obtained through higher-order thinking processes is more easily
transferable, so that students with a deep conceptual understanding of an idea will
be much more likely to be able to apply that knowledge to solve new problems.

Teaching (H.O.T.) Skills

It is hard to imagine a teacher or lecturer who is not aware of the importance of

teaching higher-order thinking (H.O.T.) skills to prepare young men and women to
live in the 21st Century.
However, the extent to which higher-order thinking skills are taught and assessed
continues to be an area of debate, with many teachers and employers expressing
concern that young people cannot think.

Teachers are good at writing and asking literal questions (e.g., Name the parts of a
flower), but we tend to do this far too often.
Students must be taught to find the information they need, judge its worth, and think
at higher levels. There is simply too much information in the world for us to waste
students' time with regurgitations of basic facts. As Bellanca (1997) states:

Why Do We Want to Teach Higher-Order Thinking?

We push toward higher-order thinking skills in the classroom because they have
enormous benefits for our students. The reasoning here is similar to the rationale for
pushing knowledge into our long-term memory.
First, information learned and processed through higher-order thinking processes is
remembered longer and more clearly than information that is processed through lower-order,
rote memorization.
Consider for example, the difference between memorizing a formula and explaining the
derivation of the formula. In this case, a student who has the latter-type of understanding will
carry that knowledge longer.

Deep Conceptual understanding

Research study showed that students are more likely to apply a skill to solve new problems
when they have a deep conceptual understanding of that skill than when there is a lack of
this conceptual understanding.
One researcher used two methods to teach children the drop-perpendicular method for
computing the area of a parallelogram.

Memorizing a formula

Group
A

lxh
=
Students in Group A simply memorized by rote the drop perpendicular method and
applied it to the shape, successfully finding the area of the parallelogram

Explaining derivation of the formula

Students in Group B were provided the reasoning behind the process. They were shown
how one could cut off a triangular portion of a parallelogram and re-attach it at the other
end to make a rectangle.

h
l

lxh
=
The students were led to understand that the method is actually a simple
variation on the (length) x (width) = (area) formula that they already knew
for rectangles

Application of the deep conceptual understanding in problem solving

The students were led to understand that the method is actually a simple variation on the
(length) x (width) = (area) formula that they already knew for rectangles.
This set of students, Group B, then applied the method and, like Group A, successfully
found the area of the parallelogram
Then, when a parallelogram were presented in an unusual orientation, Group A students
incorrectly applied the process, arriving at an incorrect answer. Group B students, having
an understanding of why the formula works, adjusted the method to fit the new orientation
and derived the right answer.

Why Do We Want to Teach Higher-Order Thinking?

Knowledge obtained through higher-order thinking processes is more easily transferable,
so that students with a deep conceptual understanding of an idea will be much more likely
to be able to apply that knowledge to solve new problems.
This sort of higher-order transfer of understanding is the key to good thinking and
problem solving. Good thinking and problem solving skills make learned knowledge
applicable in the real world.
As teachers of students who are often lagging behind their peers in better resourced
schools, we have a mandate to do all that we can to ensure that our students are engaging
new knowledge at a level that will allow them to transfer it to new real-world applications.
If our students can add numbers with decimal points, can they add prices in a store?
So, you know that your students are engaged in higher-order thinking when they:

Visualize a problem by diagramming it

Separate relevant from irrelevant information in a word problem

Seek reasons and causes

Justify solutions

See more than one side of a problem

Weigh sources of information based on their credibility

Reveal assumptions in reasoning

Identify bias or logical inconsistencies

Teaching High Order Thinking

Non algorithmic

Involving paths of action for solving

problems that are not specified in
advance (creative problem solving)

Complex

Involving problem solving where

multiple solutions are possible

Effortful

Involving considerable mental energy

directed toward problem solving

Nuanced judgments

Application of multiple criteria

Uncertainty about what is known

Self-regulation

Imposition of meaning

Involving subtle, less-than-obvious

decisions about strategies
Involving transferal of some
(sometimes conflicting) criteria to the
problem solving process
Involving problems that do not provide
a clear starting point
Involving some degree of metacognition and self-awareness about
strategies being employed
Involving development and application
of new theories onto sets of facts and
problems

If our students can write a persuasive essay, can they write a letter to their banks
requesting a loan, their senators arguing policy points, or, someday, their childrens
teachers calling for high expectations for their children?
If our students can list the steps in the scientific method, can they also recognize
that the conclusions drawn by a polluting company failed to be reached using that
scientific method?

How Do We Teach Higher-Order Thinking?

Higher order thinking is a very difficult to teach. Thinking aloud is the most effective.
Whenever students are being pushed to their academic levels, or being forced to apply
what they know, they often need to be shown how to think.
They need to be aware that there should be something going on in their head. I always
model my thinking aloud. I pretend to be a student in the class and put on a special hat.
When that hat is on, I use hypothetical questions that I ask myself out loud. Frank Cush,
Houston 04 Principal, KIPP Schools

Heuristics: Tools for Solving Problems

Heuristics are general problem-solving strategies that may help students tackle
difficult questions.
You can practice these techniques with your students and then provide novel
situations for them to apply their newly acquired skills

10 Heuristics Problems Solving strategies

1) Do not focus only on the details; try to see the forest as well as the
trees.
2)

Do not rush to a solution rashly.

3)

Try working backwards by starting with the goal.

4)

Create a model using pictures, diagrams, symbols or equations.

5)

Use analogies: What does this remind me of?

6) Look for unconventional or new ways to use the available tools.

7) Discuss a problem aloud until a solution emerges
8) Keep track of partial solutions so you can back to them and resume
where you left off.
9) Break the problems into parts.

10)Work on a simpler version of the problem.

How Do We Teach Higher-Order Thinking?

The importance of higher-order thinking makes it a priority in our classroom, but how
does one teach towards higher-order thinking?
How does one foster the kind of deep conceptual understanding that is transferable to
various academic contexts and, perhaps more importantly, to real-world problems?
We have gathered here various strategies for doing just that:

If you are studying persuasive writing, have all students write a letter to a local leader
on some hot-button topic in your community.
If you are considering how to teach the scientific method, look for community issues
that will simultaneously motivate your students and provide them an authentic
context for applying the skills you are teaching.

Teaching Higher-Order Thinking

1. Teach skills through real world contexts.
Because higher-order thinking is difficultafter all, you are asking students to make
decisions, rather than simply follow a prescriptive pathit will help your cause if you
build motivation for the tasks you have developed.
If you are teaching your students when to use the various equipment operations,
bring them to the workshop and demonstrate the application.

2. Vary the context in which students use a newly taught skill.

Another prerequisite for (H.O.T.) is flexible approaches to problem solving. Besides an
emphasis on real world application of skills, a teacher should work to introduce
students to a variety of real-world contexts in using a particular skill.
The more settings in which a student uses some new element of knowledge, the
more the student internalizes the deeper conceptual implications and applications of
the knowledge.
For example, to teach addition of numbers with decimal points, have students work
with and add decimal-laden temperatures, metric-based measurements of the
lengths of walls, and the scores from skating competitions.)

By coming at a skill from many different angles, you will loosen the contextual grip
that a students mind may have linking a particular skill with a particular
circumstance.

3. Throughout your instruction, take every opportunity to

emphasize the building blocks of higher-order thinking
Teach content in ways that require students to build background knowledge. The
more your students are gaining and retaining information about the world around
them, the more they bring to the table when solving complex problems. Help
students tap into what they already know, which might just be the information
needed to answer a challenging question.
Classify things into categories
You might, for example, have your first graders develop and create categories for a
series of words based on their structure. Students might come up with categories based
on first letter, ending letter, or vowel sound. Arrange items along some dimension.

As you are teaching students to write persuasive essays, you might provide students
with five different essays of different qualities, asking the students to rank them and
explain their ranking.

Make hypotheses. In any type of discovery learning, ask students to mentally

conduct the experiment before you actually do conduct it.

What do you think will happen when I tape this weight to the side of the ball and
throw it?

Draw Inferences
What do you think will happen when I tape this weight to the side of the ball and throw it?

What sound does shout start with? How do you write that sound? or What
influences do you think were weighing on the Presidents mind when he made that
decision?
Solve problems. Puzzles and problems can be designed for any age level and any
subject matter.

Meta-cognitive Development
Meta-cognitive development supports students' internalization of strategies. It does
this through a conscious focus on the implementation of plans of attack.
Meta-cognitive development fosters student autonomy through self-monitoring and
self-assessment (Walqui, 1992).

An example is teaching what a "good" reader does as he or she reads. The actual
steps could be outlined to the students.
This way, the students can copy the steps themselves as they read. Students can
stop from time to time during their reading and examine whether they're getting the
main idea, understanding the theme of the article, etc.

Think about planning (How should I approach this problem? What additional
resources or information do I need?
Purposefully allocate time and energy (How do I prioritize my tasks in order to most
efficiently solve this problem?)

Specifically, for a teacher, this means delineating and teaching specific problemattack strategies, giving students time to ponder difficult answers for themselves,
and modeling those strategies by thinking aloud to solve problems during guided
practice.

New Jersey, Susan Asiyanbi realized that many of her fourth grade math students
lacked proficiency in open-ended questions because of their lack of reading
comprehension:
She then had them break down any higher-order problem into five steps
Q. Question,
F. Facts,
S. Strategy,
S. Solve, and
C. Check.
After modeling how to break down sample problems into these five steps, she had
her students identify and write down the questions asked by the problem, the
important facts and the strategy they would use to solve the problem. Only then
could they solve the problem. Once done, they went back to the question and made
sure they answered every part.
Children are very quick to solve a problem and often do not recognize that they have
not finished all the steps or are not answering the question being asked.
These basic five steps ensured that all of the students could feel successful,
regardless of reading and/or math level.

Problem Solving: Draw a Picture

The draw a picture strategy is a problem-solving technique in which students make a
visual presentation of the problem.
eg. A frog is at the bottom of a 10-meter well. Each day he climbs up 3 meters. Each
night he slides down 1 meter. On what day will he reach the top of the well and
escape?
Once students became confident with using this strategy, the problems was made
more difficult with larger numbers, which would make the Draw a Picture strategy
pretty arduous

Why Is Draw a Picture method so Important?

Drawing a diagram or other type of visual representation is often a good starting
point for solving all kinds of word problems. It is an intermediate step between
language-as-text and the symbolic language of mathematics.
By representing units of measurement and other objects visually, students can begin
to think about the problem mathematically. Pictures and diagrams are also good
ways of describing solutions to problems; therefore they are an important part of
mathematical communication.
Keep in mind that these techniques can be implemented in all classrooms at all
levels. Do not make the mistake of thinking that higher-order thinking should be
reserved for older students, or for high performing students, or for supplemental
activities. In fact, one of the recommendations from the National Research Councils study
of higher-order thinking was that we not wait to move to higher-order.

While some degree of common sense is obviously called for with younger students
who may not have the capacity for all forms of higher-order thinking, research
indicates that even the youngest of students can be prepared for higher-order
thinking through an emphasis on basic problem solving skills.
All of the developmental approaches have emphasized the fact there is a natural
progression in thinking from lower forms to higher forms with age or experience. This
developmental progression implies that students need to have a certain amount of
education, experience, or practice before they can become capable of the highest

forms of thought. . And yet, each approach also reveals that it is wrong to assume
that teachers should do nothing to promote thinking until students reach a certain
age.
This also means that the lower-level mastery of basic facts and skills plays a critical
role in supporting the development of higher-order thinking. This also means that the
lower-level mastery of basic facts and skills plays a critical role in supporting the
development of higher-order thinking.

The High Investment of Higher-Order Thinking

Teaching higher-order thinking requires more work from the teacher. Higher-order
thinking takes considerable time to develop through lots of practice in different
contexts.
As researcher Jere Brophy emphasizes, teaching higher-order thinking requires a
commitment to class discussion, debate, and problem-solving, all of which take time.
Teaching involves inducing conceptual change in students, not infusing information
into a vacuum, [and this] will be facilitated by the interactive discourse during
lessons and activities.
Clear explanations and modeling from the teacher are important, but so are
opportunities to answer questions about the content, discuss or debate its meanings
and implications, or apply it in authentic problem-solving or decision-making contexts

Module:7
EXAMPLE OF
H.O.T.S

Examples of Activities that Promote Higher Order Thinking

Examples of Activities: Science
Apply a Rule:
The student could be asked to explain why a shotgun "kicks" when fired. His
response would include a statement to the effect that for every action there is an
equal and opposite reaction (Newton's Law of Motion), and that the "kick" of the
shotgun is equal to the force propelling the shot toward its target. The faster the

shot travels and the greater the weight of the shot, the greater the "kick" of the
gun.

Classify:
Given several examples of each, the student could be asked to classify materials
according to their physical properties as gas, liquid, or solid.

Construct:
The student could be asked to construct a model of a carbon atom

Define:
Given several types of plant leaves, the student could be asked to define at least
three categories for classifying them. NOTE: Defining is not memorizing and writing
definitions created by someone else -- it is creating definitions.

Demonstrate:
Given a model of the earth, sun, and moon so devised that it may be manipulated to
show the orbits of the earth and moon, the student could be asked to demonstrate
the cause of various phases of the moon as viewed from earth.

Describe:
The student could be asked to describe the conditions essential for a balanced
aquarium that includes four goldfish.

Diagram:
The student could be asked to diagram the life cycle of a grasshopper.

Distinguish:
Given a list of paired element names, the student could be asked to distinguish
between the metallic and non-metallic element in each pair.

Estimate:
The student could be asked to estimate the amount of heat given off by one liter of
air compressed to one-half its original volume

Evaluate:
Given several types of materials, the student could be asked to evaluate them to
determine which is the best conductor of electricity.

Identify:
Given several types of materials, the student could be asked to identify those which
would be attracted to a magnet.

Interpret:
The student could be asked to interpret a weather map taken from a newspaper.

Locate:
The student could be asked to locate the position of chlorine on the periodic table.
NOTE: To locate is to describe location. It is not identification of location.

Measure:
Given a container graduated in cubic centimeters, the student could be asked to
measure a specific amount of liquid.

Name:
The student could be asked to name the parts of an electromagnet.

Order:
The student could be asked to order a number of animal life forms according to their
normal length of life.

Predict:
From a description of the climate and soils of an area, the student could be asked to
predict the plant ecology of the area

Solve:
The student could be asked to solve the following: How many grams of H2O will be
formed by the complete combustion of one liter of hydrogen at 70 degrees C?

State a Rule:
The student could be asked to state a rule that tell what form the offspring of
mammals will be, i.e. they will be very similar to their parent organisms.

Translate:

The student could be asked to translate 93,000,000 into standard scientific notation.

Module: 8

CONCLUSION

Conclusion and Key Concepts

By now, you should understand what is meant by higher-order thinking. You should
recognize why we want to teach higher-order thinking, understanding that a deeper
conceptual understanding of ideas is remembered longer and is more transferable to
other contexts. You should also understand that higher-order thinking is best taught
through real-world contexts and by varying the scenarios in which students must use
their newly-acquired skills.

You should emphasize the building blocks of higher-order thinking and encourage students to
think about the strategies they are using to solve problems.
As victims of the achievement gap, our students need to make significant academic gains
just to catch up with many other students and to have an even chance at lifes opportunities.
One of the ways that you can help provide that chance is to lead, draw, and push students
toward higher-order thinking.