DISCUSSION#05

[Sir Lloyd]

Lesson No. 7 - IT for Higher Thinking Skills and Creativity

1.  Does the new framework on higher thinking skills and creativity mean that teachers no longer make efforts to help students pass/excel in achievement tests? Explain.

2.  Can these complex thinking skills be also achieved even without using educational technology tools? Explain.

3.  While the discussion on IT-based projects are still to follow, can you predict how information technology hardware (especially the computer and its Internet capability) and software programs have excellent possibilities for assisting in the development of higher thinking skills and creativity projects (Clue: think of computer graphics, photos, video, etc.)

[Rossana Bella Palitones]

1. In my own point of view, the new framework on higher thinking skills lets the students to be independent in gathering new learnings and let them analyze problems and lessons on their own, but that doesn't mean that the teachers will no longer make efforts to help students pass/excel in achievement tests. They still have to help the students because they serve as the guide to the students.

2. Accordinng to Beyers'(1991) teaching of complex thinking was applied, incorporating creative instructional strategies as well as a variety of on line tools and techniques. Beyers' ideas on thinking skills and their attributes were considered essential for promoting learners' self awareness and for controlling and monitoring their thinking process, which form instruction in a technology classroom.  So basing on this statement and some articles that I read, complex thinking skills cannot be achieved  or complex thinking skills cannot be developed without educational technology tools. Because complex thinking skills is focussing on technology classroom atmosphere like internet technologies, networking and more.

3. With adequate technological knowledge and technology tools, their will be an excellent possibilities of developing higher thinking skills and creativity projects.Because it will develop students' skills, specially in the modern working environment, including the ability to communicate using a variety of media and formats, access and exchange information in a variety of ways and more.    

[melissa larena]

1.Children can be creative in many ways, by seeing new relationships
that surprise their classmates and deepen a discussion. By “giving an
example, giving a counter-example, questioning, proposing a solution,
creating new relationships, providing context, inventing a problem”
students can use their creativity to enrich their learning and the
learning of others.Helping students develop their creativity is a
worthwhile goal if for no other reason than personal enhancement. A
poem that is only read by the poet, an idea to make housekeeping more
efficient, an insight into the world around us, may not be known to
anyone, but still has the power to make life more meaningful and more
pleasurable.

2.Most educators would agree that their students are not as proficient
at these kinds of thinking as they would like them to be. Textbooks
and other teaching materials often consist of activities that require
low-level skills such as recall and memorization. The academic
standards movement of the last decade has focused interest on the
development of higher-order thinking skills through more rigorous
academic expectations. The purpose of having knowledge is to use it.
Traditional educational practices assumed that students needed a
considerable amount of knowledge in order to do anything with it.
Unfortunately, students rarely moved past the learning of facts,
accumulating more and more of what they called “inert knowledge.”Using
knowledge is the fun, and frustrating, part of learning. Project-based
learning allows students to practice higher-order thinking and use
knowledge. The processes included in this category are decision
making, problem solving, experimental inquiry, and investigation.
Creativity, another type of complex thinking, is often described as a
special type of problem solving.

3.Meta cognition, or “thinking about thinking” refers to the mental
processes that control and regulate how people think. Meta cognition
is especially important in project-based learning because students
must make decisions about what strategies to use and how to use them.
The three components of meta cognition are: awareness, planning and
goal setting, and monitoring. Students who are meta cognitively aware
are able to describe how they make decisions and are able to adjust
the strategies they use when they are not successful.