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Developing Higher

Order Thinking
Robert Fisher

Robert Fisher
Developing thinking and learning
This seminar will focus on:

• developing higher order thinking skills


• dialogic teaching and learning
• the development of qualifications in
Scotland to support the Curriculum for
Excellence programme.

Robert Fisher
What is the purpose of
education?
Education …
‘has for its purpose not the imparting
of particular knowledge but the
strengthening of mental faculties’
(Kant)

… to cultivate the mind and develop character


Robert Fisher
Why teach for thinking?

‘If thinking is how we make sense of


experience then helping our children
to become better thinkers will help
them to get more out of learning
and more out of life.’

Fisher, R. (2008) Teaching Thinking Continuum


Thinking to Learn (Highland Council)

Robert Fisher
What are thinking skills?
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence is not an act, but a habit’ (Aristotle)

A thinking skill is:


• a mental process learnt through practice
• how we apply intelligence to a problem
• our capacity to make judgements

What is good thinking?


Thinking Skills
• Knowledge
• Understanding - Information
• Application processing
• Analysis - Critical thinking
• Synthesis - Creative thinking
• Evaluation Bloom (1956) Fisher/Logan (Highland LEA)

• Remembering
• Understanding
• Applying
• Analysing and evaluating
• Creating
(SQA)
Robert Fisher
Dimensions of thinking
These dimensions of thinking at literal,
strategic, and conceptual levels :
• information processing
• critical thinking
• creative thinking
• comparative (evaluative) thinking
through self-reflection, dialogue and writing,
characterise research.

Robert Fisher
What is higher order thinking?
• Intellectually challenging, requires effort

• Complex and multi-variable

• Open, uncertain, not routine or algorithmic

• Seeks meaning, conceptual understanding

• Evaluative, involving criteria for judgement

• Metacognitive, involves self-regulation


Robert Fisher
Activities that promote higher order skills
• Collaborative learning
• Experiential learning
• Problem-based learning
• Outcome-focused learning
• Interdisciplinary and multi-context learning
• Systems thinking
• High level discussion
• Interactive questioning
• Action based research
• Peer reflection and challenge
Higher Order Skills Excellence Group (2011)
Robert Fisher
Models of dialogue

• Speaking and listening – engaging in talk

• Discussion groups – sharing views, ideas


• Community of Enquiry – seeking
understanding via questioning, explaining,
hypothesising, reasoning, and evaluation of
concepts and claims to truth and knowledge
- within a self-regulating democratic setting.

Robert Fisher
Teachers and students as researchers

Thinking teachers and students enhance


teaching and learning by research through:

• questioning, problem posing


• studying multiple sources of information
• applying higher order thinking
• extending thinking through dialogue
• reviewing processes and outcomes

How do we build research into the curriculum?


Robert Fisher

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