tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5053151003977377665.post8036557460233370102..comments2024-02-23T05:11:31.034-08:00Comments on Always Formative: My first assessment failureJason Buellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03029995715142652159noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5053151003977377665.post-60638201962450133542010-06-19T17:36:03.607-07:002010-06-19T17:36:03.607-07:00How, oh, how does one teach higher thinking skills...How, oh, how does one teach higher thinking skills? I just finished my first year, and figured out quick that my 6th graders were struggling with first and second order inferences. I think it must have come naturally to me, b/c I don't remember learning how to do them. So, how do I teach them? I guess I'll go now and google "teaching inference" and "teaching thinking".Mama Rachaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03534245701379707268noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5053151003977377665.post-79463484956182240512010-05-10T20:12:14.622-07:002010-05-10T20:12:14.622-07:00Thanks Grace. It was a big epiphany for me that I ...Thanks Grace. It was a big epiphany for me that I had to directly teach thinking.<br /><br />Your second paragraph is dead on. If you directly taught it, it's memorization. That was something I didn't get for a long time. <br /><br />There's a book called Developing Minds ed. by Arthur Costa that was really helpful. If you've ever read those Leading Edge books from Solution Tree it's like that: A collection of a bunch of different articles by various experts.<br /><br />In that Leading Edge series there's a book On Excellence in Teaching. An article by Debra Pickering parallels what I said above. Agree to teach higher order thinking. Give them structures to get them started but the freedom to break free from those structures. <br /><br />Just discovered your blog and am enjoying reading through it. I look forward to future conversations.Jason Buellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03029995715142652159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5053151003977377665.post-71948858702813942402010-05-10T06:26:17.076-07:002010-05-10T06:26:17.076-07:00I really like how your examples of explicitly teac...I really like how your examples of explicitly teaching higher order thinking skills are not content-specific; when you want students to compare/contrast, you teach them a format or structure for comparing and contrasting in general as opposed to just telling them that the similarities and differences are x, y, and z, and when you teach evaluation, you teach them decision-making criteria rather than "the right answer."<br /><br />I often see well-intentioned teachers try to build their students' higher order thinking skills by explicitly teaching them the answers, and then asking seemingly open-ended and higher-level questions on assessments that are actually little more than memorized responses. Your method is way better, and I look forward to hearing more!gracehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09629147659164801681noreply@blogger.com