What are examples of higher level thinking?

Higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) is a concept popular in American education. It distinguishes critical thinking skills from low-order learning outcomes, such as those attained by rote memorization. HOTS include synthesizing, analyzing, reasoning, comprehending, application, and evaluation.

HOTS is based on various taxonomies of learning, particularly the one created by Benjamin Bloom in his 1956 book, "Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals." Higher-order thinking skills are reflected by the top three levels in Bloom’s Taxonomy: analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

Bloom's taxonomy is taught in a majority of teacher-education programs in the United States. As such, it may be among the most well-known educational theories among teachers nationally. As the Curriculum & Leadership Journal notes:

"While Bloom’s Taxonomy is not the only framework for teaching thinking, it is the most widely used, and subsequent frameworks tend to be closely linked to Bloom’s work.... Bloom’s aim was to promote higher forms of thinking in education, such as analyzing and evaluating, rather than just teaching students to remember facts (rote learning)."

Bloom’s taxonomy was designed with six levels to promote higher-order thinking. The six levels were: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. (The taxonomy's levels were later revised as remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, revising, and creating.) The lower-order thinking skills (LOTS) involve memorization, while higher-order thinking requires understanding and applying that knowledge.

The top three levels of Bloom's taxonomy—which is often displayed as a pyramid, with ascending levels of thinking at the top of the structure—are analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. These levels of the taxonomy all involve critical or higher-order thinking. Students who are able to think are those who can apply the knowledge and skills they have learned to new contexts. Looking at each level demonstrates how higher-order thinking is applied in education.

Analysis, the fourth level of Bloom's pyramid, involves students use their own judgment to begin analyzing the knowledge they have learned. At this point, they begin understanding the underlying structure of knowledge and also are able to distinguish between fact and opinion. Some examples of analysis would be:

Analyze each statement to decide whether it is fact or opinion.
Compare and contrast the beliefs of W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington.
Apply the rule of 70 to determine how quickly your money will double at 6 percent interest.
Illustrate the differences between the American alligator and the Nile crocodile.

Synthesis, the fifth level of Bloom’s taxonomy pyramid, requires students to infer relationships among sources, such as essays, articles, works of fiction, lectures by instructors, and even personal observations. For example, a student might infer a relationship between what she has read in a newspaper or article and what she has observed herself. The high-level thinking of synthesis is evident when students put the parts or information they have reviewed together to create new meaning or a new structure.

At the synthesis level, students move beyond relying on previously learned information or analyzing items that the teacher is giving to them. Some questions in the educational setting that would involve the synthesis level of higher-order thinking might include:

What alternative would you suggest for ___?
What changes would you make to revise___?
What could you invent to solve___?

Evaluation, the top level of Bloom's taxonomy, involves students making judgments about the value of ideas, items, and materials. Evaluation is the top level of Bloom’s taxonomy pyramid because at this level that students are expected to mentally assemble all they have learned to make informed and sound evaluations of the material. Some questions involving evaluation might be:

Evaluate the Bill of Rights and determine which is the least necessary for a free society.
Attend a local play and write a critique of the actor’s performance.
Visit an art museum and offer suggestions on ways to improve a specific exhibit.

Children with learning disabilities can benefit from educational programming that includes HOTS. Historically, their disabilities engendered lowered expectations from teachers and other professionals and led to more low-order thinking goals enforced by drill and repetition activities. However, children with learning disabilities can develop the higher-level thinking skills that teach them how to be problem solvers.

Traditional education has favored the acquisition of knowledge, especially among elementary school-age children, over the application of knowledge and critical thinking. Advocates believe that without a basis in fundamental concepts, students cannot learn the skills they will need to survive in the work world.

Reform-minded educators, meanwhile, see the acquisition of problem-solving skills—higher-order thinking—to be essential to this very outcome. Reform-minded curricula, such as the Common Core, have been adopted by a number of states, often amid controversy from traditional education advocates. At heart, these curricula emphasize HOTS, over strict rote memorization as the means to help students achieve their highest potential.

When a person memorizes and repeats back the information without having to think about it, we call it rote memory. That’s because it’s much like a robot; it does what it’s programmed to do, but it doesn’t think for itself. Higher level thinking takes thinking to higher levels than restating the facts.

Higher level thinking requires that we do something with the facts. We must understand them, infer from them, connect them to each other, categorize them, manipulate them, put them together in new or novel ways, and apply them as we seek new solutions to new problems.

Higher level thinking includes concept formation, concept connection, getting the big picture, visualization, problem solving, questioning, idea generation, analytical (critical) thinking, practical thinking/application, and synthesizing/creative thinking. It includes being able to construct similes, metaphors and analogies that represent concepts. Robert Sternberg, a well-known professor of psychology, says that successful people consistently and interactively use analytical, creative, and practical thinking.

As students move from elementary to middle to high school, the complexity of thinking increases. Teachers may ask students why a certain character in a story behaved in a particular way, and to show evidence in the text to support their response. If the students are studying sound in science, they might be asked to apply their knowledge sound by designing and constructing a new type of musical instrument. They may be asked to explain how a particular scientist clarified a scientific phenomenon by accurately tracing his supporting details in a scientific article. In history, they may be asked to compare and contrast primary source materials against a secondary synthesis. They may be asked to write an extensive research paper on a specific subject. All of these tasks require higher level thinking.

Metacognition means thinking about thinking. There are two basic parts to metacognition: thinking about your own thinking and knowing about knowing. Generally speaking, good students understand the way they think. Knowing about knowing encompasses understanding the difference between memorizing and understanding and between surface and deep knowledge.

A person needs to know his mental strengths and weaknesses. Am I good at solving problems, understanding concepts, and/or following directions? Am I more analytical, creative or practical in my thinking? Do I learn best by listening, seeing, or doing – or by a combination of all three? Which memory techniques work best for me?

The second part of metacognition is knowing how to monitor and regulate how one thinks and learns. It is deciding how to best accomplish even a simple task by using specific strategies and skills effectively. For example, how would you go about the simple task of learning new spelling words? By analyzing them by phonemes or by syllables? By writing them several times? By spelling them aloud a number of times? By spelling them aloud while simultaneously writing them?

Sternberg states that metacognition requires mental self-management. Mental self-management can be described as an expanded view of metacognition. According to Sternberg, mental self-management is composed of six key steps:

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses
Capitalizing on your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses
Defying negative expectations
Believing in yourself – self-efficacy
Seeking out role models – people from whom you can learn
Seeking out an environment where you can make a difference

We often think that a student’s ability to engage in higher level thinking is determined by IQ, but this is not the case. Higher level thinking skills can be taught and learned.