Higher Order Thinking

We have been learning about Bloom's Taxonomy and higher order thinking. We all remember sitting in a classroom, day in and day out, being lectured to for weeks followed by a test that we would stay up cramming for. What we don't remember, most likely, is what we learned. That is because we were only engaged in lower-order thinking. Higher order thinking is when students combine facts and ideas and synthesise, generalize, explain, hypothesize or arrive at some conclusion or interpretation. It is up to the teacher to create activities or environments that allow the students an opportunity to engage in higher-order thinking. Studying Bloom's levels of taxonomy really help me to understand what is needed when creating a unit plan and his list of action verbs will be carried around with me always!!