Thinking Outside the Box: Higher-Order Thinking Skills

"For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible."

- Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland

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I have been thinking about higher-order thinking skills a lot lately.  From trying to make my online courses more engaging to talking to faculty about flipped learning to taking an Adobe course where we explore ways to increase creativity in students, higher-order thinking has been, well, on my mind.

So, what are higher-order thinking skills? I'm glad you asked...

We have all heard of Bloom's taxonomy, a way of classifying learning objectives that has been around for decades. It consisted of six categories named for the type of learning outcome they described: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

The taxonomy was modified more recently to use verbs as category names (since learning objectives use verbs to describe observable, measurable behavior) and to modify two categories. Instead of describing types of learning outcomes, the new descriptors defined how learners used and interacted with knowledge: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.

There are lots of lists out there with verbs you can use to write objectives at each level, as well as directions for how to write learning objectives based on Bloom's taxonomy, but that's not what I want to talk about here.

Bloom's taxonomy is normally described as a hierarchy, with one level leading to the next. The higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) are the ones on the top of the hierarchy, with lower-order thinking skills (LOTS) at the bottom.

It is usually presented in a pyramid diagram like the one to the right. I tend not to like that one, for two reasons.  First, making "Remember" the largest area makes it seem like it is the most important, or that you should have more objectives of that level than others. Second, it puts the levels in a hierarchy, implying you need to master objectives at one level before you can move on to the next.

(Not to mention my OCD gets itchy when you can't fit the labels for the top two levels inside the pyramid...)

Some people present the pyramid flipped, with the point at the bottom. This emphasizes the importance of the upper levels, but it still maintains the hierarchical nature of all the levels.  In my opinion, all of the layers are not hierarchical, so this scheme still is not ideal.

In this scheme, the higher-order thinking skills are Analyze, Evaluate, and Create, while the lower-order ones are Remember, Understand, and Apply.  The lower-order skills are somewhat hierarchical; generally, in order to apply knowledge you need to understand it and to understand it you need to remember it.  However, trying to apply knowledge often leads to greater understanding, and the more you use knowledge, the likelier you are to remember it, so that hierarchy is not perfect.

(And then there's that whole OCD with the labels outside the pyramid boundaries...)

The idea of a hierarchy falls apart at the higher-order levels.  Analyzing involves breaking something down to its component parts, identifying or forming relationships among those parts, and separating facts from inferences or opinions. Evaluation is the process of forming judgments or placing value on ideas or products. Finally, creating is the process of making something new, forming new and original relationships between elements to produce something where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.  Each one of those higher-order skills are separate, even if they are related. As you create something new, you need to evaluate its effectiveness.  Part of that creation process involves analyzing the relationship among the elements.

I drew this image to describe my thoughts on Bloom's taxonomy. I like this approach because it shows the relative importance of higher-order learning objectives along with the interconnectedness of the lower-order objectives. It represents the lower-order objectives support of the higher-order ones, but does not imply a hierarchy within those orders.

By the way, I used higher-order thinking to draw this picture. I created it, of course, but I also had to analyze what I considered to be the relationships among the categories, and evaluate how well my diagram demonstrated those relationships.  I also analyzed what the traditional diagrams showed and evaluated them to determine what I thought they didn't emphasize.  All of that is built on remembering and understanding Bloom's taxonomy in the first place, and about 35 years of applying it to writing learning objectives.

Why is this important? A number of research studies show the increased importance of creativity as a leadership quality in business. IBM surveyed 1500 CEOs from 60 countries, and creativity emerged as the most crucial factor for success. Adobe surveyed students and teachers globally about the importance of creativity in education.  Both felt creativity will be essential in the future workforce; 94% of teachers believe that GenZ students will have careers that do not yet exist.

Problem-solving and critical thinking are often cited as some of the top skills employers want.  These skills require all of the higher-order thinking skills, analyzing a problem's complexity, identifying relationships among data, creating possible solutions, and evaluating their effectiveness. However, the majority of employers say students lack the problem solving skills needed to succeed in the workplace.

Clearly, higher-order thinking skills are important Flipping the classroom, authentic assessment, problem- and project- based learning are all ways we can encourage the development of higher-order thinking in students. Unfortunately, the traditional method of direct lecture instruction and multiple choice assessment, does not encourage this way of thinking.  It may have been the way most of our college courses were taught, but if we were honest with ourselves, we might realize those courses could have been taught more effectively.

Over the next several weeks, I will talk about specific ways to encourage higher-order thinking skills in the traditional and online classroom.  From things I have tried, like moving to all essay exams and gamifying  deadlines to things I have helped others try like flipping the classroom and learning by doing, all of these techniques require faculty to do certain things.

1. Embrace failure. Be willing to fail and to allow your students to fail. Not everything you do will work, and students will not always be successful.  That doesn't mean you should give up any more than they should. If we never tried anything new for the fear of failing, we never would learn how to walk.
2. Rethink assessment. The ability to assess one's own learning is a higher-order thinking skill, so students need to be taught it.  However, we tend to view assessment as a means to a grade.  Giving students low-stakes ways to assess their learning is key, but it is a balancing act. You need to give them enough incentive to complete the assessment (like a grade) but still make sure that failure doesn't discourage them.
3. Reward the good. We tend to punish bad behavior instead of rewarding good behavior. Instead of assessing a late penalty or not accepting late work, try offering incentives to motivate students to do work on time.  If there is work you want students to complete before class, give them additional time or attempts; students who choose not to do the work on time don't get a penalty for turning work in late (only if it does not cause you more work).
4. Encourage creativity. Why do we insist students write answers to exams? While good written communication skills are important, employers are becoming more interested in verbal and visual communication skills as well.  By giving students options in how to communicate what they have learned, you are making the learning more relevant to them.
5. Be uncomfortable. This image popped up in my twitter feed last year. I think this may be something college faculty, in particular, find challenging, being put in the position of not being the expert in something. In order to learn or try something new, you need to acknowledge that the way you have always done it may not have been the most effective. That makes people uncomfortable. But that's not a bad thing...

So keep thinking about higher-order thinking skills, and use those higher-order thinking skills to try new ways to encourage them in your students.