THE STUDENT LEARNING GOAL

            The Curriculum Cooperative's teaching and learning goal is higher-order thinking.  That is, the goal is to  greatly improve higher-order thinking among high-school graduates.  As the Curriculum Cooperative’s major function, the Curriculum Library is a tool designed by and for teachers to enable them to teach their students higher order thinking, no matter who they are, and to do so efficiently, effectively and consistently

            Higher-order thinking: What is it?  What does higher-order thinking look like?

            Students are engaged in higher order thinking when they are explaining, problem solving, thinking critically or making considered decisions in a wide variety of contexts.  They direct their own choice of questions to pursue and are adept at a wide variety of skills as they combine information and conceptual understanding in pursuit of a well-focused question.

            In educational jargon, higher-order thinking might be summarized as flexible, inquiry-based explanation, problem solving, critical thinking and/or considered decision making.  It is the basis of  “learning to learn.”  Higher-order thinking can be defined as the orchestration of the fundamental cognitive processes of application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation and creativity, often referred to as the “high end” of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.   The fluency of higher-order thinking emerges from a fluid interplay of these five fundamental processes.

            For the classroom teacher, the goal is to have students practice higher-order thinking in many different contexts requiring a wide variety of skills.  In an accomplished student, higher order thinking is akin to the fluid interplay of fundamental motions apparent in an athlete.   Effective higher order thinking is a performance in which several of the five, higher-order “Bloom” processes contribute to varying degrees in a highly creative endeavor.  

            Higher-order thinking must be defined operationally so that educational outcomes can be measured.  The operational definition of higher-order thinking is knowledge transfer.  To what degree can students extract essential, transferable knowledge from a situation or experience, see its relevance to a question in a very different context, and apply it to a question embedded within that new situation?  This describes an intellectual ability that is specific and measureable.  Such an ability is a realistic and attainable student behavior that characterizes explanation, problem solving, critical thinking and considered decision making. 

            The educational model that underlies The Curriculum Cooperative develops this definition of higher order thinking into a means of objectively measuring a student’s ability to transfer both skills and transferable concepts.   Each of Bloom’s five higher-order processes can be characterized as a particular way, or pattern, of combining a generic concept with a specific content.  The patterns and the strengths of the five patterns can be observed and measured in student performances.  Skills, based on fluency with a procedure or algorithm, are learned, practiced and measured as part of the various means by which students may combine concept with topic. 

 

DEFINITION OF HIGHER ORDER THINKING
Higher order thinking is defined as the command of information, skills, transferable concepts and intellectual processes required for the problem solving, critical thinking, and considered decision-making that generate economic productivity and effective participation in civic and cultural affairs for citizens in rapidly changing workplaces and societies.  Assessment of such higher order thinking would measure the degree to which students can combine the transferable concepts characteristic of each major subject area with the information and skills needed to answer a question or create a product within a wide variety of phenomena, contexts or issues. 

 

WHERE THE GOAL FITS INTO THE BIGGER PICTURE
There are many possible goals for educating the youth of any society, most of which can be divided into four categories as shown in the below chart.  The goal of higher-order thinking is part of the intellectual and cognitive category.  Such a focus does not mean that the other three categories are not equally important – they are all equally weighty in the sum of what makes up the ideal adult.  They are also interdependent, and success in the intellectual arena is often accompanied by success in one or more of the others. 

            Within the intellectual arena, higher-order thinking is the Holy Grail.  Fluid, effective conceptual transfer is the pinnacle of higher-order thinking.  But creative explanation and problem solving, astute decision making and reasoned critique are not, thankfully, routine in most walks of life.  It would be exhausting for anyone to maintain such a level of intellectual creativity as a matter of course.   Procedural problem solving, skilful performance and inter-personal cooperation make up the steady diet of most jobs.  It is conceptual transfer that shapes and directs the routine, inspires and creates the new and rewarding, and produces the intellectual enjoyment and play that makes it all worthwhile in the first place.