Developing high order thinking skils
The last few years have seen the growing interests of Indian
psychologists and educationists to understand the learning process and the
level of the Indian students in schools. About six years back a study conducted
by one research organization found that most of the students did not have the
age appropriate knowledge and that they were not able to answer questions which
were put to them differently. The
schools selected were considered to be the top schools of the country. The
children who were selected for this study were also the ones who had got good
grades in their school examinations. Then what is the reason that they were not
able to respond to the questions put by an external agency in a different way.
Was it the fault of examination or the learning process of the children? This
is what I have been stating in all my previous write ups, on the topic of
reforms in school education, which are too much inclined towards examination.
The most important thing which is to be changed in our education system is the
methodology of teaching learning process in the classroom and outside. The teachers must be trained in child
psychology and the pattern of the learning process which takes place even
before the children come to the formal education system. The teachers must
realize that the children already have some concepts about many things without
being formally taught or told by somebody. This already existing knowledge
makes the difference in the mindset of the children to accept the new concepts
introduced by the teachers in the classroom. For example, a child had seen an
Apple at home with green colour but when the teacher in the school tells him or
her the colour of apple as to be red, the child gets confused. His already
existing concept will not allow the concept of red to be understood and
accepted very easily till the time the teacher shows him a red colour apple. In this case also, there cannot be just one
correct answer for the question regarding the colour of apple. Similarly,
different questions can have more than one answer and the teachers must allow
the children to explore and explain the things in their own ways. At times the
teachers also do not pay any attention to the difference between information
and knowledge. Too much of information without understanding will never be good
to a learner hence the teachers need to understand requirement of concept
learning and skill development including thinking skills. I would also avoid deliberating
upon the importance of brain for different people because this is a different
topic in itself. But one thing is for sure that all children have the potential
and capacity to learn more and more depending upon the exposure and environment
around them.
Should the children be allowed to learn on their own and if no, then
how much should be the influence of the teacher or any external source? While
interacting with the parents, I have realized that many of them want the
teachers to be doing lot many things in the classroom for the children. Not
only this, even at home also many of them hire tutors for their children so
that they complete their homework and other assignments. In most of the cases, it the teacher who
dictates and the children just copy that.
Do you think any learning will take place this way? Then should we leave
the children without any guidance. Here
I would like to cite the example of the study conducted by Ilonca Hardy and
others in Germany. They conducted a short eight session course for second grade
toddlers on floating and sinking. They were asked questions like why needle
sinks in water while a big ship floats. The children gave various answers as
comprehended by them. Then they were given different items of different
material and allowed to do experiments to make them understand that floating does
not solely depend upon the volume. The
study also compared two different methods of learning; one in which the teacher
was available but not actively participating in the experiment while in the second
case the teacher was taking active part in initiating the discussion and also
sometime guiding the children if they were haywire while doing the
experiment. The students in the first
group were left free to play around with the materials and do their own
experiments the way they liked. This was called Low Instructional Support. The
teacher in the group was only to encourage to
discuss and made occasional observations but did not structure the
process at all. The children had enthusiastically discussed many things and tried
to do experiments, making the
observations as per their learning and previous knowledge. The second group of the children got well
defined support from the teachers. As
the sequence of learning was proper so focused discussion could take place. The
researchers called it as High Instructional Support. These students did the
experiments and completed their worksheet in a fixed sequence. This course was
designed to change their concept regarding floating and sinking by exposing
them to almost real life experiments.
The result was that the two groups did equally well on immediate
test of conceptual understanding in comparison to the children who did not go
through this course. The researchers thought that the children were able to
understand the concept equally well hence both methods (Low Instructional
Support and High Instructional Support) are equally effective but when the test
was conducted after about an year or so when it was found the children of the
second group (High Instructional Support) performed much better than the other
group of the children (Low Instructional Support). This means that High
Instructional Support enables children for efficient learning to solve the new
problems. It is the responsibility of the teachers to decide and plan how much
involvement and guidance would be required by the learners while handling
different conceptual topics. For this, the understanding of previous knowledge
of the children and their cultural background will be of great help. In our
country, most of the teachers especially in middle school and secondary schools
use lecture method which leaves very little scope for the children to be active
partners in the teaching learning process. That is the reason why the children
do not get enduring and long lasting knowledge and understanding in such
classes though they may show immediate sense of learning. But from my point of
view, that is just an information which has been received by them, which will
not last for long because every teacher is doing the same in different subjects
all through the day. So if we have to
develop Higher Order Thinking Skills in our children then guided support
concept has to be adopted by the teachers so that the children are able to
learn themselves under structured instructions from their teachers. This requires a lot of efforts on the part of
teachers and the parents as well. They have to work in tandem so that the
children do not get confused between the learning “forced” on them in the
school and at home. For this our teachers training institutes must improve their
curriculum and methodology of training the prospective teachers. This will give
freedom to our children to exploit their potential to the fullest.
Comments
Post a Comment