To develop cognitive skills across curriculm

Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Regional Department of education

XIX regional pedagogical reading

TO DEVELOP COGNITIVE SKILLS ACROSS CURRICULM

Turaliyeva Zhanargul

Teacher of English

№36 school-gymnasium

Atyrau 2018

Content

Introduction

What are the cognitive or thinking skills?

Main part

Lower order thinking skills and higher order thinking skills by Bloom's Taxonomy.

To use the cognitive skills in English lesson. (in my practice)

Conclusion

The results of using thinking skills in the lesson.

Goal:

To create interest in learning language by developing thinking skills.

Objectives:

1)Define cognitive skills.

2)Explore why thinking skills are important and how it's effected to learner.

3)Discuss how to incorporate cognitive skills in my lesson.

In "How to Create and Develop a Thinking Classroom", Mike Fleetham writes:

"In our evolving world, the ability to think is fast becoming more desirable than any fixed set of skills or knowledge.  We need problem solvers, decision makers and innovators.  And to produce them, we need new ways to teach and learn.  We need to prepare our children for their future, not for our past."

Cognitive skills fall under the broader definition of cognition. Cognition is a term that encompasses nearly all of our mental processes. To study cognition is to study how humans process information. This includes how our memories work, how we interpret and understand language, how we solve problems, and how we make decisions, among other aspects. Human interest in the concept of cognition is thought to have begun in ancient Greek times, when philosophers like Aristotle began to question how the human mind worked. Though cognition is studied by experts in a variety of different scientific fields, the most common examination of cognition happens through the lens of psychology. In terms of psychology, cognition refers to one’s thoughts and brain functions.

Cognitive skills, sometimes referred to as cognitive functions, are the tools we use to mentally interpret to the world around us. The most common examples of cognitive skills are related to our ability to learn new information, such as when we interpret speech or writing. It is often discussed that growing old can be accompanied by a decrease in one’s cognitive skills and abilities. When an elderly person experiences memory loss or has trouble processing new information, his or her cognitive skills have weakened.

Cognitive skills or thinking skills are the processes our learner's brains use when they think and learn. Cognitive skills develop from a very young age. Learners progress from information processing or concrete thinking skills, such as identifying and organizing information (the what, when,where,which,who and how many questions), to abstract thinking, such as reasoning and hypothesizing ( the why and what if questions).

Other examples of thinking skills are:

• Creative thinking and synthesis, for example when we use our knowledge to imagine, to solve problems and to think of new ideas

• enquiry skills, for example when we ask questions and plan how to do research

• evaluation skills, for example when we use criteria to comment on how good our work is.

Learners need to develop a range of cognitive skills as well as language for thinking. Thinking skills are the mental processes that we apply when we seek to make sense of experience.  Cognitive skills enable us to integrate each new experience into the schema that we are constructing of "how things are".  It is apparent that better thinking will help us to learn more from our experience and to make better use of our intelligence.

A scientist named Jean Piaget studied the concept of cognitive skills extensively in the early twentieth century, focusing particularly on the cognitive development of children. His findings on the subject contributed to his well-known theory of cognitive development, in which he claimed that children develop their cognitive skills throughout four distinct stages as they grow up. In the sensorimotor stage, from birth to two years of age, children possess motor skills, but any other kind of knowledge is very limited. In the pre-operational stage, from ages two to seven, they develop imagination and memory skills, and began to understand language, symbols, relationships and problem solving. In the concrete operational stage, from seven to twelve years of age, a more logical kind of intelligence emerges, and children are able to understand reversal of roles, and can manipulate symbols and operational thinking. And finally, in the formal operational stage, from twelve years onward, people develop the ability to think in an abstract way, solve complex problems, test hypotheses, and focus on logical reasoning.

  It has always been the central aim of education to improve the quality of thinking because better thinking will not only enable us to become more successful at learning but will also equip us for life, enabling us to realize our own potential and to contribute to the development of society.

  Cognitive skills can be divided into lower order thinking skills (LOTS) and higher order thinking skills (HOTS).

The original attempt to distinguish between LOTS and HOTS was made in the 1950s by Benjamin S. Bloom. In his work Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain [1] he singled out six categories in cognitive domain and provided definitions for each of them:

1. Knowledge. This category includes different types of knowledge such as terminology, specific facts, conventions, trends and sequences, classifications and categories, criteria, methodology, principles and generalizations, theories and structures.

2. Comprehension. This refers to translation, interpretation, and extrapolation.

Education and Educational Research

3. Application. This category refers to the “use of abstractions in particular and concrete situations”

4. Analysis. This category involves analysis of elements, of relationships, and that of organizational principles.

5. Synthesis. The category represents production of unique communication; production of a plan or proposed set of operations; derivation of a set of abstract relations.

6. Evaluation. This means evaluation in terms of internal evidence and judgments in terms of external criteria.

The first three categories from the list are traditionally associated with LOTS, whereas the last three are considered to be HOTS. Thus, it makes sophistication grow from the basic skills to the highest level.

In 2001 Lorin W. Anderson along with David R. Krathwohl revised the original taxonomy. They changed the names of major categories into verbs and used gerunds to interpret the meaning of each category, underscoring in this way the active nature of thinking process. For the purpose of our project, we use the taxonomy described in A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview by David R. Krathwohl [3]:

1. Remember (retrieving relevant knowledge from long-term memory): (1) Recognizing, (2) Recalling.

2. Understand (determining the meaning of instructional messages, including oral, written, and graphic communication): (1) Interpreting, (2) Exemplifying, (3) Classifying, (4) Summarizing, (5) Inferring, (6) Comparing, (7) Explaining.

3. Apply (carrying out or using a procedure in a given situation): (1) Executing, (2) Implementing.

4. Analyze (breaking material into its constituent parts and detecting how the parts relate to one another and to the overall structure or purpose): (1) Differentiating, (2) Organizing, (3) Attributing.

5. Evaluate (making judgments based on criteria and standards): (1) Checking, (2) Critiquing.

6. Create (putting elements together to form a novel, coherent whole or making an original product): (1) Generating, (2) Planning, (3) Producing.

I used all these cognitive skills in my lesson appropriate to each topic. Now I start using new methods which I have learnt from the course .

For example , to the topic " Are you a bookworm?" I used a mind map which is written "Book" and learners wrote the words related to topic as they know. It's Knowledge stage from the Bloom's Taxonomy.

In the topic "Invitation " learners spoke about Good and Bad party by dividing into two groups. This task I used for HOTS like discussion by justifying. For LOTS in the topic "What's weather like?" learners completed the weather table from the following information . I usually use matching task, True or False, jumble sentence etc. During the lesson students presented their own project work with group and then the evaluated each other's work by following criteria. For predicting the theme of new lesson I showed learners many pictures and videos, after I gave opened question. They had their own different opinions. It needed more thinking skills.

Before pre-teaching the new words I elicit from students the definitions as they know, then I help them. For drilling vocabulary I used the game "Find your own seat" in the topic " Adapting to the environment". Students were given definitions and they found the word from back of chairs which were stacked. When they found the words they sat down to these chairs. They created interest in the lesson and it was useful for checking their understanding in vocabulary.

There is my lesson plan for topic " Adapting to the environment" on 7th grade in it . It can be showed that how I planned and organised my lesson according to my aims of lesson by using Bloom's Taxonomy.

In conclusion, to foster thinking skills, and critical thinking in particular, is a challenging task nowadays since learners are exposed to an enormous information influx, such as the Internet. They are offered pre-chewed chunks of ideas and opinions and often, they are not made to think about them. However, a critical thinker should be alerted and in his/ her inquisitive nature inquire, judge and evaluate all such sources critically. Hence, teachers should promote cognitive challenge, collaborative learning and metacognitive discussions in their classes. Without critical thinking systematically designed into instruction, learning is transitory and superficial. Furthermore, a proper communicative competence, both organizational (including grammatical and discourse competence) and pragmatic (including sociolinguistic and illocutionary competence) becomes ineffective.

About outcomes I can say that it was given good results how I expected.

• The students took more interest in learning English language.

• Knowledge enriched

• Students can think creatively.

• Free English speaking skills are developed.

• STT(student talking time) is increased and TTT (teacher talking time) is reduced.

• Students can evaluate each other’s work in group and in pair.

References:

[1] Bloom B.S. (Ed.), Engelhart M.D., Furst E.J., Hill W.H. & Krathwohl D.R. Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals, US, Handbook 1: Cognitive domain, 1956.

[2] Halpern D.F. Thought and knowledge: An introduction to critical thinking, US, 2003.

[3] Krathwohl D.R. A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview, Theory into Practice, US, vol 41/number 4, pp 212 - 218, 2002.

[4] Rai E.R., Viering M. Assessing 21st Century Skills: Integrating Research Findings, Canada, 2012.

[5] Presseisen B.Z. Thinking skills: Meaning and models revisited, In A.L. Costa (Ed.), Developing minds: A resource book for teaching thinking, US, 3rd ed., pp.47-53, 2001.