Teaching Higher-Level Thinking

Teaching Higher-Level Thinking

Chapter Five
I. What Is Higher-Order Thinking?
II. Why Do We Want To Teach Higher-Order Thinking?
III. How Do We Teacher Higher-Order Thinking?
IV. The High Investment Of Higher-Order Thinking

Students do not understand in the most basic sense of that term. That is, they lack the
capacity to take knowledge learned in one setting and apply it appropriately in a different
setting. Study after study has found that, by and large, even the best students in the best
schools can’t do that.25

For decades, public schools prepared children to be good citizens—and 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.

As economic and technological changes shape the occupational outlook of today’s 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.

This chapter explores the role of higher-order thinking in the classroom. After first attempting to define
the concept, we will then discuss why teachers should strive for more and more demanding thinking from
their students. In the final section of this chapter, we discuss specific techniques for fostering higher-
order thinking in your classroom.

I. What Is Higher-Order Thinking?

In 1987, the National Research Council sponsored a project that attempted to synthesize all the many
theories about higher-order thinking. The express goal of the project was to make recommendations
about how to foster higher-order thinking in students. While lower-order thinking is more easily defined
as mastering facts (such as being able to describe the parts of 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):26

“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 Involving subtle, less-than-obvious decisions about strategies
application of multiple Involving transferal of some (sometimes conflicting) criteria to
criteria the problem solving process

25 Gardner, Howard, quoted by Ron Brandt. “On Teaching For Understanding: A Conversation with Howard Gardner.”
Educational Leadership. April 1993: Vol. 50 No. 7, p. 4.
26National Research Council, Committee on Research in Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education.
“Education and Learning to Think.” Report published 1987.

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 uncertainty about what Involving problems that do not provide a clear starting point
is known
self-regulation Involving some degree of metacognition and self-awareness
about strategies being employed
imposition of meaning Involving development and application of new theories onto sets
of facts and problems

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 Bloom’s ladder. By contrast, “lower-order thinking” is
simple, reflex-like, transparent, and certain.

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

Clearly, advanced forms of higher-order thinking may be out of reach for a kindergarten student who is
not yet able to engage fully in abstract thought. (See chapter two.) Higher-order thinking in all its many
forms is, however, an attainable goal in all classrooms at all grade levels. Kindergarteners can be
problem solvers; you can still lead them to think about creative solutions to problems and to draw a
diagram to help think about a puzzle.

Although some critical mass of lower-order thinking in the classroom is necessary as a foundation for
reaching higher-order thinking skills, it does not justify the overwhelming emphasis in this nation’s
classrooms on the lower-order knowledge and skills to the exclusion of higher-order thinking. “[W]e can
safely say that an emphasis on facts is the ‘norm’ for the United States and the emphasis on thinking
represents an occasional deviation from this norm.”27 Byrnes also points out that these deviations seem
to be a function of periodic public dissatisfaction with the standard approach of emphasizing facts, a
dissatisfaction that is most commonly stoked by some major technological advance such as Sputnik, or
the computer boom.

Among the primary reasons for this focus on lower-order thinking skills may be the simple fact that
lower-order thinking skills are easier—easier to understand, easier to teach, easier to test, easier to
learn. So, why do we want to leave this comfort zone to reach for higher-order thinking skills for our
students?

27Byrnes, James P. Cognitive Development and Learning In Instructional Contexts, 2d ed. Allyn and Bacon: Boston,
2001, p. 91.

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Teaching Higher-Level Thinking

II. 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. Or,
the difference between memorizing the definition of a new word and internalizing strategies for
discerning the probable definition of the word from its context. Or, the difference between mere
memorization of the multiplication tables and a deeper understanding that the multiplication tables
represent short cuts for addition. Or, the difference between reciting the events included in a history
textbook and drawing inferences from a number of historical documents. In each case, a student who
has the latter-type of understanding will carry that knowledge longer.

Moreover, the student with the deeper conceptual knowledge will be better able to access that
information for use in new contexts. This may be the most important benefit of high-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.

In a well known study showing 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.

Group A Group B

h h h

l l l

l x hh == area 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.

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. The
students were led to understand that the method is actually a simple variation on the “(length) x (width) =

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(area)” formula that they already knew for
rectangles. This set of students, Group B, then Heuristics: Tools for Solving Problems
applied the method and, like Group A, Heuristics are general problem-solving strategies that
may help students tackle difficult questions. You can
successfully found the area of the parallelogram.
practice these techniques with your students and then
provide novel situations for them to apply their newly
acquired skills
(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.
Then, when children were presented with a (7) Discuss a problem aloud until a solution
parallelogram in an unusual orientation, the emerges.
Group A children incorrectly applied the process, (8) Keep track of partial solutions so you can come
arriving at an incorrect answer. The Group B back to them and resume where you left off.
students, having an understanding of why the (9) Break the problem into parts.
formula works, adjusted the method to fit the new (10) Work on a simpler version of the problem.
orientation and derived the right answer.

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? 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 children’s
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?

III. 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:

(1) Teach skills through real-world contexts. Because higher-order thinking is difficult—after
all, you are asking students to make decisions, rather than simply follow a prescriptive
path—it 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 arithmetic operations, set up a store in
your classroom. 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.

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Teaching Higher-Level Thinking

[Note that this strategy is—like all others in this chapter—a variation on “getting inside your
students’ heads.” Successful teachers think carefully about how students will hear and
receive information, and they consider the various contexts within which their students could
use a new skill or knowledge.]

(2) Vary the context in which students use a newly taught skill. Another prerequisite for
higher-order thinking is flexible approaches to problem solving. In addition to an emphasis
on one real-world application of skills, a teacher should work to introduce students to a
variety of real-world contexts in which a particular skill is used. 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 student’s 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
Higher order thinking is a very difficult to
first graders develop and create teach. I have found that thinking aloud is the
categories for a series of words most effective. Whenever students are being
based on their structure. (Students pushed to their academic levels, or being forced
might come up with categories to apply what they know, they often need to be
based on first letter, ending letter, shown how to think. They need to be aware that
or vowel sound.) there should be something going on in their
• Arrange items along some head. I always model my thinking aloud. I
dimension. As you are teaching pretend to be a student in the class and put on a
special hat. When that hat is on, I use
students to write persuasive
hypothetical questions that I ask myself out
essays, you might provide students loud. The students know that they are not to
with five different essays of interrupt me when I am in this "brain talking"
different qualities, asking the stage. They also know that some of the
students to rank them and explain questions I am asking myself are very easy and
their ranking. should not be answered for me. Students love it
• Make hypotheses. In any type of and it is an amazing way to model what should
“discovery learning,” ask students be going on in their heads. I try to include higher
to mentally conduct the experiment order thinking in every task. I call them my
challenges. Sometimes they are harder for my
before you actually do conduct it.
lower students, but they benefit from them just
“What do you think will happen as much as my higher students.
when I tape this weight to the side
of the ball and throw it?” Frank Cush, Houston ‘04
• Draw inferences. “Having now 2nd Grade
read these three letters from
American soldiers in Vietnam, what
can we tell about the experience of being there?”

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 • Analyze things into their components. “What sound does ‘shout’ start with? How do
you write that sound?” or “What influences do you think were weighing on the
President’s mind when he made that decision?”
• Solve problems. Puzzles and problems can be designed for any age level and any
subject matter.

(4) Encourage students to think about the thinking strategies they are using. That is, when a
student is using context-clues to find the meaning of a word, the student should recognize
and think about that strategy as well as the fruits of that strategy. Among the benefits of this
sort of “metacognitive” approach is that it encourages students to:
• think analytically about problem definitions (“What do I have to accomplish? What
am I allowed to do? What skills can I transfer to this problem? What information is
relevant to the problem?”),
• think about planning (“How should I approach this problem? What additional
resources or information do I need?”), and
• 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 problem-attack
strategies, giving students time to ponder difficult answers for themselves, and modeling
those strategies by thinking aloud to solve problems during guided practice.

Susan Asiyanbi, New Jersey ’01, realized that many of her fourth grade math students lacked proficiency
in open-ended questions because of their lack of reading comprehension:

As a result, I had them break down any higher-order problem into five steps: Q
(Question), F (facts), St (Strategy), S (solve), and Ch (Check). After modeling how to break
down sample problems into these five steps, I required my students to 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 me
that all of my students could feel successful, regardless of reading and/or math level.

Once Susan got her students accustomed to this method of conceptualizing the overall task, she helped
them learn different strategies for solving a problem:

We would begin with word problems that could be easily solved by drawing a picture, and I
would model how a picture could represent the problem and thus help them solve it. After
my students became confident with using this strategy, I would make the problems more
difficult with larger numbers, which would make the “Draw a Picture” strategy pretty
arduous. Inevitably, a student would mention that he or she knew another way the class
could tackle it. The child would explain the strategy, and the other students would nod in
agreement and appreciation. From there, I would give a name to the next strategy, which
was often either “Develop an Equation” or “Make a Table,” and we’d use this strategy to
tackle a series of problems. After a while, my students were proficient in using all sorts of
strategies (Draw a Picture, Guess and Check, Make a Table, Recognize a Pattern or
Sequence, Solve a Simpler Problem, Work Backwards, Restate the Problem in Your Own
Words, Use Logical Reasoning, Develop an Equation, Use Manipulatives to Model the
Information).

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Teaching Higher-Level Thinking

At this point, my task was to make sure that they could decipher the best time to use a particular strategy
in terms of ease and time. It became their job not only to answer a problem, but also to explain how they
answered it, why they chose that particular strategy, and if there was another way that it could be done.
Eventually, students were using multiple strategies as a way to check their work!

Keep in mind that these techniques can be implemented

My eleventh grade English students must be in all classrooms at all levels. Do not make the mistake
aware at all times that learning is a very real of thinking that higher-order thinking should be reserved
process that is taking place in their lives. Using
for older students, or for high performing students, or for
Reciprocal Teaching has enabled them to be
supplemental activities. In fact, one of the
active participants. They constantly annotate the
reading process in the margins, noting areas of recommendations from the National Research Council’s
difficulty or lingering questions. Also, they play study of higher-order thinking was that we not wait to
“teacher” as much as possible, coming up with move to higher-order. The Council suggested that we
questions and answering those questions. It teach content at the earliest grades through open-ended
gives them ownership over their learning while complex problems. While some degree of common
forcing them to ask questions at different levels sense is obviously called for with younger students who
and answer them. One teaching highlight came may not have the capacity for all forms of higher-order
for me the day we had a Holocaust survivor as a
thinking, research indicates that even the youngest of
guest speaker during our unit on Night. At the
students can be prepared for higher-order thinking
end of the question/answer segment he
responded, “Wow, you students ask such great, through an emphasis on basic problem solving skills. As
teacher-like questions.” Byrnes points out:

Theresa Martinez, Miami ‘04 All of the developmental approaches have emphasized
11th Grade English 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.28

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. Teachers must give their students a lot of experience making
a data table if they are going to expect them to be able to access that strategy to their toolbox when
tackling open-ended problems.

IV. The High Investment Of Higher-Order Thinking

Teaching to 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

28Byrnes, James P. Cognitive Development and Learning In Instructional Contexts, 2d ed. Allyn and Bacon: Boston,
2001, p. 80.

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 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.29

More specifically, in addition to the

mental rigor involved in developing Higher-Order Thinking In Practice—One Classroom’s Story
lesson plans that incorporate The following reflection by seventh-grade language arts teacher Andrew
higher-order thinking, there are Mandel, RGV ’00, demonstrates one teacher’s determination to infuse
two additional challenges that a higher-order thinking into his students’ writing:
teacher takes on. The first is
motivation. It almost goes without I noticed that my students were not generating effective support for their
paragraphs; their "reasons" to bolster an opinion ("we need to be able to
saying that students are more
leave campus to buy snacks") were often repetitive or unconvincing ("it's
likely to engage in higher-order, not fair"). So I used the principles of memory theory and higher-order
critical thinking when they are thinking to help them generate stronger ideas. First, by examining
highly motivated to do so. Creative successful paragraphs, listing their supporting sentences and
teachers capitalize on this categorizing those sentences according to "type," we created a menu of
connection and therefore (a) use potential reasons that students could use when writing persuasive pieces,
real-world problems that are of including facts ("according to my research, our vending machines
genuine concern to students to charge more than any other cafeteria in the district"), anecdotes ("once, I
foster their critical thinking skills, bought gum from our machine that was so hard that my teeth hurt trying
to chew"), and causes and effects ("because we cannot leave campus to
and (b) engage students with
buy snacks elsewhere, Candy Incorporated has full control over our urge
compelling challenges to their pre- for food and has no reason to improve"). By creating these categories,
existing biases, drawing them into students felt much more comfortable trying to generate their own
analytical debates about difficult reasons for the various assignments we pursued; they had a framework
issues. for accessing their ideas, rather than feeling overwhelmed in one giant
pool of thought.
Second, to truly encourage higher-
order thinking, a teacher must The second piece of the puzzle was showing students the common errors
design assessments and exercises in reasoning that muddied their writing. I explicitly taught potential
pitfalls, such as overgeneralizations ("all students hate the dress code"),
that actually use new and novel
false cause and effect ("because I have to wear a uniform, I can't
situations and problems. This is no concentrate in school"), false assumptions of your audience ("if you get
small task. But, if at the core of rid of the dress code, then everyone will like you"), and circular reasoning
our concept of higher-order ("I think the uniforms are ugly because I don't like the way they look.") We
thinking is students’ ability to apply practiced recognizing these pitfalls in new situations, and my students
knowledge to new situations, began noticing quirks in their own writing and thinking. One of my golden
teachers have to be constantly moments of teaching was Michael saying, "no one likes that you give
creating opportunities for that sort homework," and then stopping himself and saying, "well, maybe that's an
of transferal of knowledge. That overgeneralization."
means creating those new
situations.

Conclusion and Key Concepts

Having read this chapter, 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

29 Brophy, Jere. “Probing the Subtleties of Subject-Matter Teaching.” Educational Leadership (April 1992), p. 5.

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Teaching Higher-Level Thinking

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 life’s opportunities. One of the ways that you can
help provide that chance is to lead, draw, and push students toward higher-order thinking.

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