The case study provides an observational checklist of characteristics of the development of higher-order thinking and symbol usage for primary grade students.
Higher order thinking skills involve logical, critical, metacognitive, reflective, and creative thinking activated whenever we tackle with non-standard situations, uncertainties, unfamiliar problems, or dilemmas. Successful deployment of higher order thinking skills result in advanced comprehension, decision-making, and performance. Each successful application of these essential developmental skills promotes the rise of intellectual capacity.
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"Higher Order Thinking".
Prior to developing higher order thinking skills, primary grade students apply lower order skills, involving simple applications, discriminations, primitive cognitive and analytical strategies related to the content of the subject matter. In this context, most learning environments assume the application of appropriate teaching strategies capable of facilitating the development of higher order thinking skills among the primary grade students, encouraging their intellectual growth, and boosting creative and flexible approaches to various task solutions.
The existing concepts that explain the nature of higher order thinking skills and their application hold that the level of student thinking largely depends on the level of learning while both processes are closely interrelated. The next conceptual assumption is that students cannot learn to think without the presence of subject matter content. In other words, continuous presence in the learning environment helps primary grade students learn new content and further progress towards gaining higher order thinking skills. Finally, the conceptual framework of higher order thinking skills assumes that higher order thinking comprises a wide range of thinking processes students apply to cope with complex situations, dilemmas and solutions assuming multiple variables.
While pursuing higher order thinking skills in primary grade students, educators should primarily emphasize on the constituent elements of this concept. First comes procedural knowledge that serves as an essential prerequisite for developing higher order thinking. The component assumes knowing and applying the rules (Crowl et al., 1997). However, neither “information learning” nor “application” subcomponents involve higher order thinking. Conversely, only the application of procedural knowledge along with analysis and synthesis of two or more concepts assume higher order thinking. For instance, teachers may task students with various puzzles, writing and drawing assignments, symbol-oriented exercises etc.
Another related component is comprehension that makes up a constituent part of lower order thinking skills. Comprehension, nonetheless, is integral to the development of higher order thinking skills in primary grade students. Educators boost comprehension through practical activities (Crowl et al., 1997).
The forthcoming component is creativity as an integral part of higher order thinking process. This component helps students to generate non-standard solutions to problems that reach beyond the established approaches and learned concepts. Creativity assumes the development of both convergent and divergent thinking skills to make students come up with ideas (Crowl et al., 1997).
The next component is insight that assumes unexpected solutions to complex problems. Insight solutions require high cognition and problem-solving skills. Intelligence is further essential component that goes beyond common capacities of learning, adapting, and thinking in a rational manner. Critical thinking and problem solving components go hand-in-hand, according to various research findings, though many theorists in the field differentiate between them (Lewis and Smith, 1993). Nonetheless, both components are focused and goal-oriented, reflective and reasonable, and assume practical outcomes (Cotton, 1997).
While all these components assume gradual development starting from early ages, primary grade students use their imagination and creativity to make decisions and solve various problems that assume logical resolutions (Schooler et al., 1995).
Piaget principally attributed cognitive development to developmental stages. At that, school age is a period when children develop operational thinking and manipulate with symbols in the logical and systematic ways. Further, on an adolescent stage and further adulthood, they use symbols associated with abstract concepts in a logical manner. At that, they ground on hypothesis testing and scientific reasoning. Operational thinking skills, therefore, form the basis for further self-reflection, problem solving capacity, and critical reasoning (Miles, 1992).
In his turn, Bruner held that learning processes assume active inquiry and discovery, intrinsic motivation, and inductive reasoning. He claimed that the stages of cognitive development are not linear; while they evolve simultaneously. His “spiral curriculum” assumes learning new material by return to the already learned topics.
Both psychologists emphasized on the importance of active learning development, active inquiry and discovery, intrinsic motivation and inductive reasoning in students. Both focused on strong correlation between the learned material and new information. Thus, educators should achieve higher order thinking skills in students by developing hands-on participation, visual representations, and integration of symbols in the form of visual material into a learning process (Crowl et al., 1997).
Lessons that involve higher order thinking skills ground on progressive teaching strategies based on clear communication, minimum confusion and ambiguity, and inspiration of adequate attitudes to critical thinking assignments among students. To reach higher order thinking skills in primary grade students, educators should model their thinking skills in terms of practical applications, adapt to diverse student needs, and gradually facilitate students in the course of the learning process.
