Higher-Order Thinking Skills in Mathematics
The mathematics teacher plays a pivotal role in the educational process. This role requires the teacher to possess higher-order thinking skills, as they are no longer merely transmitters of information but rather inspirers and guides who foster creativity in their students. Developing these skills opens wide horizons for student creativity, allowing them to express independent thinking and engage in evaluative reasoning to assess facts, opinions, and beliefs. Teaching higher-order thinking skills benefits students by enhancing their cognitive abilities and serves as a renewable capacity for individual and societal survival in today’s rapidly changing world.
Concept and Skills of Higher-Order Thinking
Higher-order thinking skills are defined as cognitive processes and performances that involve serious participation in decision-making. They result from various thinking patterns, including critical thinking, creative thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making. These are effective mental processes for handling mathematical content and require the execution of mental operations.
Researchers have agreed to classify these skills into two main categories:
• Critical Thinking Skills in Mathematics:
- Inference: The ability to derive new information from available data.
- Comparison: The ability to identify similarities and differences between multiple concepts.
- Analysis: Breaking down information into smaller components.
- Deduction: Understanding relationships between given data and judging whether a conclusion is derived from them.
- Evaluating Arguments: The ability to recognize key aspects of an issue and distinguish its strengths and weaknesses.
- Identifying Assumptions: Examining facts and data and judging their presence or absence.
• Creative Thinking Skills in Mathematics:
- Fluency: The ability to generate the largest possible number of correct creative ideas in a relatively short time.
- Flexibility: The ability to produce diverse ideas that are not typically expected and to redirect or shift thinking as situations change.
- Originality: The learner’s ability to generate unique and rarely repeated ideas.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to quickly perceive problems or weaknesses in situations that others may not notice.
Factors for Successfully Developing Higher-Order Thinking Skills
The development of higher-order thinking skills depends on several essential factors for the success of the educational process, including:
- The Teacher: The most important element in the success of thinking education programs. The teacher must act as a guide and mentor, accept students’ ideas, and give them sufficient time to express their opinions.
- Classroom Environment: It should be rich in interaction and positivity between the teacher and students and among the students themselves. A distinguished classroom environment fosters the growth and development of these skills.
- Curriculum: Thinking skills cannot be taught in isolation from the curriculum. Curricula must be designed to develop these skills and follow diverse teaching strategies that help the teacher employ them effectively.
- Educational Activities: Activities should be open-ended, focus on idea generation, and provide real opportunities for thinking, research, and exploration.
Importance of Teaching Higher-Order Thinking Skills
Teaching higher-order thinking skills is of great importance because it:
- Cultivates a spirit of inquiry in students and helps them gain deeper understanding of knowledge.
- Enhances intellectual growth and leads to academic achievement.
- Helps students overcome difficulties and make appropriate decisions.
- Improves student performance in intelligence and achievement tests.
- Prepares students for life, helping them understand the world around them and develop their cognitive and mental abilities.
- Plays a vital role in academic and life success.
- Benefits both teacher and student by increasing student positivity and effectiveness, boosting academic achievement, and reducing teacher effort.
