Considerations in Teaching Higher Order Thinking Skills To Students with Mild Disabilities

Abstract

Teachers are becoming increasingly aware of and striving to teach students higher order thinking skills. Still, some educators argue that schools ought to be doing an even better job of teaching these skills because changing employment demands in our society are not being met, students are ill prepared to work in an information age, college preparation is less than satisfactory, and general problem-solving abilities are low (Resnick, 1987). Generally, employers are looking for people who possess general skills such as the abilities to write and speak effectively, to learn on the job, to read material, and to build and evaluate arguments. Schools are failing to produce individuals who can move easily into more complex types of work.Nickerson (1987) proposes that teaching thinking skills will equip people to compete successfully for educational opportunities, jobs, recognition, and rewards in our society. In addition, good thinking is considered a prerequisite for good citizenship because critical thinking ability "helps the citizen to form intelligent judgments on public issues and thus contribute democratically to the solution of social problems" (Glaser, 1985, p. 27). The ability to think well also contributes to an individual' s psychological well-being because good thinkers tend to be better adjusted than people who are not good thinkers. Finally, our citizens must possess critical thinking skills to be able to handle the many problems the world community faces (Glaser, 1985).Though the importance of thinking skills is not debatable, R· esnick ( 1987) and others note that thinking skills resist precise definition. Resnick incorporated key features of higher order thinking into a capsulized definition that will guide the use of this term in this article.Higher order thinking involves a cluster of elaborative mental activities requiring nuanced judgment and analysis of complex situations according to multiple criteria. Higher order thinking is effortful and depends on self-regulation. The path of action or correct answers are not specified in advance. The thinker's task is to construct meaning and impose structure on situations rather than to expect to find them already apparent. " (p. 44) Given the emerging societal importance of teaching higher order thinking skills, we will review special considerations in teaching these skills to students with disabilities. CURRICULUM IMPLICATIONS OF IDGHER ORDER TIDNKINGIntegrating higher order thinking skills into the instructional curriculum is not concerned so much with specific teaching strategies or classroom organization as it is with a different foundation for teaching. Fundamentally, it has to do with a cognitive approach to instruction that recognizes the learner as the most important element in the teaching-learning situation-more important than materials, lessons, teachers, or other factors external to the learner (Reid & Prisca Moore , Herbert Rieth, and Matthew Ebeling are affiliated with Vanderbilt University.