Higher order thinking (HOT) – yes, it’s a buzz word in education but that does not warrant disregarding its importance. Higher order thinking is akin to what we (at Summers-Knoll) have been referring to as “deep” and “transfer” levels of learning in rigorous project-based learning (McDowell & Miller, 2022), when our minds are engaged in applying, analyzing, and synthesizing.
In educational circles, the turn of the century (from the 20th to the 21st century) brought on conversations about the importance of schools fostering students’ 21st century skills in the “Information Age.” With technological innovations, increased dependency on digital devices and platforms, dramatic changes in the natural world, along with the globalization of commerce, people and industries, there has been a pronounced recognition of the need to prepare young people for a dynamic, rapidly changing world. They’ll need to be flexible problem solvers who can collaborate with super-diverse groups of people to address novel political, social, and environmental issues.
Much of what’s emphasized in discussions about 21st century skills is reminiscent of those cognitive domains in the upper part of Bloom’s Taxonomy: application, analysis, synthesis. And while it’s important to create opportunities for learners to develop higher order thinking skills, it’s equally important to remember that the foundation of higher order thinking is knowledge.
A set of false assumptions about the role of knowledge surfaces occasionally: students don’t need to learn content or develop content knowledge any more; if they want to learn about some topic in particular, they can do so on their own; they can read about any area of interest online; teachers don’t need to focus on the teaching and learning of discrete knowledge. Not true. Without knowledge, what will a learner analyze, apply, or synthesize? Without foundational reading skills, how will learners know how to decode and comprehend text and print information.
One of the potential pitfalls in project-based learning is a lack of attention to building domain knowledge. If we want kids to ask meaningful questions that drive and sustain inquiry, they need fodder for those questions. To get to deep and transfer levels of learning, they need to develop surface-level knowledge.
“To develop the application of knowledge and skills to new situations, students must possess a thorough knowledge base within and across academic domains,” (McDowell, 2017, p. 14).
Fortunately, some 21st century skill frameworks continue to amplify the importance of knowledge, such as the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, which includes core subject area knowledge alongside 21st century themes. Knowledge begets knowledge. The more you know, the easier it is to learn new knowledge and the deeper that well of knowledge becomes if…if the learner has opportunities to analyze, apply, and synthesize that knowledge.
So yes, kids need to learn how to persevere, be flexible, communicate, solve problems, collaborate – these are essential skills in the 21st century, and I would argue they have been essential for many centuries prior. Yes, let’s keep working on how to get better at these critical skills, not just for purposes of continual advancement but perhaps, more importantly, for the sake of the planet and for humanity as a whole. And yes, let’s keep building knowledge about history, mathematics, art, music, language, science, technology, civics, and economics and applying, analyzing and synthesizing that knowledge for meaningful purposes.
Learning and the search for meaning is a lifelong endeavor. May the quest never end!