How an individual thinks or approaches thinking is critical in their overall success as a student and later as a professional. Often the eagerness and curiosity of young children becomes suffocated or minimized as they continue through the education system due to so much focus on standardized tests and rote tasks. While memorization should not be discouraged, as it is also a wonderful life skill, it cannot be the only process of thinking that is encouraged. Rather than young students, then, being regarded as “too young” to be capable of higher order thinking skills, the reality is that they are best positioned to develop:
TeachHub.com provides a helpful list of 10 strategies teachers can use to develop strong higher order thinking skills, regardless of age. The main focus is to encourage students to make logical connections in their own thinking and to realize the importance of relevancy and inference.
So, rather than think your students may be too young for higher order thinking skills, try new strategies with your students to increase their thinking capacity as well as their ability to recognize the value of thinking through questions, challenges, projects, and ideas. The more we encourage thinking in our students, the more our students will maximize their own potential for new knowledge.
TIP: Recognize the power of thinking and encourage your students to think on their own.
Coming up next, “My content is preset so I don’t have time to work on other skills.” Stay tuned...