Higher order thinking and ICT

Student thinking and teacher questioning have traditionally focused on the lowest level of thinking, remembering-memorisation. This has been called simple or lower order thinking because the thinker does not have to apply any strategy to process the remembered information.
However, when we ask students to solve a problem, make a decision, make a generalisation, identify patterns or sequence, or distinguish facts from inferences, they have to remember and apply strategies to process (this) information.

In order to best allow a student to achieve higher order thinking it is wise to employ any and all tools to achieve this goal.

The term "higher order thinking" was coined by Benjamin Bloom, a professor at the University of Chicago. Bloom’s Taxonomy identifies six levels within the cognitive domain of learning which can be thought of as an order of thinking skills.
The six levels of Blooms taxonomy are:
Evaluation - Judging the outcome
Synthesis - Putting together
Analysis - Taking apart
Application - Making use of knowledge
Comprehension - Confirming or understanding
Knowledge - Gathering Information

Many educators have considered Etools as an easy way of helping their students reach "higher order thinking".
References

POPET Pty Ltd.(2010). Higher order thinking. Retrieved August 22nd 2010 from:http://www.popet.com.au/pages/highorderthinking.html




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