LESSON 7

IT for Higher Thinking Skills and Creativity

In the traditional information absorption model of teaching, the teacher organizes and presents information to student- learners. He may use a variety of teaching resources to support the lesson such as the chalkboard, videotape, newspaper or magazine and photos. The presentation is followed by discussion and the giving of assignment. Among the assignments maybe a research on a given topic. This teaching approach has been proven successful for achieving learning outcomes following the lower end of Blooms Taxonomy: knowledge, comprehension and application are concerned.

But a new challenge has arisen for today’s learners and this is not simply to achieve learning objectives but to encourage the development of students, who can do more than receive, recall, recite, and apply the knowledge they have acquired. Today, students are expected to be not only cognitive, but also flexible, analytical and creative. In this lesson, there are methods proposed for the use of computer-based technologies as an integral support to higher thinking skills and creativity.

Higher Level Learning Outcomes

To define higher thinking skills and creativity, we may adopt a frame work that is a helpful synthesis of many models and definitions on the subject matter. The framework is exhaustive but a helpful guide for the teacher’s effort to understand the learner’s higher learning process.

Complex Thinking Skills	Sub-Skills
Focusing	Defining the problem, goal/ objective- setting, brainstorming
Information gathering	Selection, recording of data of information
Remembering	Associating, relating new data with old
Analysis	Identifying idea constructs, patterns
Generating	Deducing, inducting, elaborating
Organizing	Classifying, relating
Imagining	Visualizing, predicting
Designing	Planning, formulating
Integration	Summarizing, abstracting
Evaluating	Setting criteria, testing idea, verifying outcomes, revising