Chapter 5 : Higher Thinking Skills Through IT-Based Projects

In the traditional information absorption model of teaching, the teacher organizes and presents information to student-learners. The teachers uses teaching resources like chalkboard/ whiteboard, videotape, visual aids, charts, and the like during the presentation and discussion of the lesson. After the discussion, the teacher gives the students seat works and home works. This teaching approach has proven successful for achieving learning outcomes following the lower end of Bloom’s Taxonomy which is the cognitive (knowledge), affective (attitude), and psychomotor (skills).

Today, students are expected not only to be cognitive, but also flexible, analytical and creative. In this lesson, there are methods proposed by the use of computer-based as an integral support to higher thinking skills and creativity.

Higher Level Learning Outcomes

To define higher level thinking skills and creativity, we may adopt a framework that is a helpful synthesis of many models and definitions on the subject matter. The framework is not exhaustive but a helpful guide for the teacher’s effort to understand the learner’s higher learning skills.

Complex Thinking Skills	Sub-Skills
Focusing	Defining the problem, goal/objective-setting, brainstorming
Information Gathering	Selection, recording of data of information
Remembering	Associating, relating new data with old
Analyzing	Identifying idea constructs, patterns
Generating	Deducing, inducting, elaborating
Organizing	Classifying, relating
Imagining	Visualizing, predicting
Designing	Planning, formulating
Integration	Summarizing, abstracting
Evaluating	Setting criteria, testing idea, verifying outcomes, revising

In the traditional way of teaching, it is only focused in the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor abilities of the students. The modern way of teaching, with the use of IT is more complex.

Higher Order Thinking Cycle

        

The Upgraded Project Method

In this modern day, the teachers are now guided on their goal to help students achieve higher level thinking skills and creativity beyond the ordinary.

We know the fact that an ordinary classroom lacks in instructional tools; as a result, the teachers are having difficulties in bringing the students to a higher domain of learning and achieving creativity, so the project method is suggested.

Project Method

Teachers assign the students to work on projects with depth, complexity duration and relevance to the real word.

Project is utilized because students need to make the most of the decisions about what to put inside their project, how to organize their information and ideas and how to communicate their result effectively.

Upgraded Project Method

In here, there is a tighter link between the uses of projects for simply coming up with products to have the students undergo the process of higher thinking skills under the framework of the Constructivist Paradigm.

In this new project method, the students are advised to use computer application and high technology in doing their projects.

Constructivist Paradigm

It emphasizes on how the students construct knowledge. The students, not the teacher are the ones who make decisions about what to put into their project, how to organize information, how to package the outcomes for presentation and the like.

In doing projects, there are two things that are involved: the process and the product.

Process. Refers to the steps, effort and experiences in project completion.

Product. The result or the end point of the process.

As a future teacher, we must take into consideration the process in every project because in the process, the students are able to think and apply their creativity and as a result, they have developed their higher order thinking skills.