Higher-Level Thinking

What is Higher-Level Thinking Bloom’s Taxonomy –Remember: Recognizing, Recalling –Understand: Interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, explaining –Apply: Executing, implementing –Analyze: Differentiating, organizing, attributing –Evaluate: checking, critiquing –Create: generating, planning, producing

Metacognition Learners’ knowledge and beliefs regarding their own cognitive processes Their attempts to regulate those cognitive processes to maximize learning and memory How can we help them develop a realistic view?

Effective Study Strategies Identifying Important Information Taking Notes Retrieving Relevant Prior Knowledge Organizing Elaborating Summarizing How can we encourage these?

Transfer Positive v. Negative –Facilitation v. inhibition Specific v. General –Content overlap v. dissimilarity

Factors affecting transfer Amount of instructional time Extent to which learning is meaningful Principles rather than facts Variety of examples and practice Similarity Length of time between Context-free v. context-bound

Better Encoding How do we get students to remember things better? –Emphasize meaningful learning –Teach for transfer –Promote flexibility –Group discussion and projects –Authentic activities –Foster dispositions –Dual coding in presentation

Problem Solving Well-defined v. Ill-defined Algorithms Heuristics

Factors affecting problem solving Working memory capacity Encoding Depth and integration of relevant knowledge Retrieval Metacognitive processes

Problem Solving I – Identify problems and opportunities D – Define goals and represent problem E – Explore possible strategies A – Anticipate outcomes and act L – Look back and learn

Creative Problem Solving Incubation Suspension of Judgment Appropriate Climate Analysis Engaging Problems Feedback on Process

Teaching Problem Solving Within the context of specific subject areas Provide scaffolding Focus on process –Vocalize, small groups, modeling, discussion

Activity A bag of 30 marbles contains cats-eyes, blue, green, and white marbles. How many of each are there if:  The number of green is half the cats-eyes  There are more white than green  There are three times as many green as blue  There are twelve cats-eyes.