Academic literature on the topic 'Lower order thinking'

The information-based society determines that the key factor to achieve success is the development of sophisticated thinking. That said, the thinking process cannot be just a mere imitation of cognitive work, since the digital age requires the authentic skills of working with a flow of information that is being constantly updated. This paper deals with the last stage of the study devoted to the development of sophisticated thinking. It focuses on the enhancement of higher order thinking skills. We claim that the cognitive processes should be based on three phases: development of disposition towards both thinking process and processed information; development of lower order thinking skills which serves as an indispensable basis for developing higher order thinking skills; and development of higher order thinking skills. The omission or reordering of any of these phases may result in significant deterioration of the obtained results. The special emphasis is put on the idea that higher order thinking skills are more effectively developed when lower order thinking skills have already been interiorized. Furthermore, the development of disposition is regarded as the cornerstone of the development of sophisticated thinking in general. Also, due to its defining feature of polysemy, a literary text is considered to be the most appropriate basis for enhancing students’ thinking skills. For the purpose of verifying the theoretical ideas, a qualitative study has been conducted. The two groups of students, who participated in the first and second stages (three-month cycle each) of our project, continue to be involved in this one. They are second-year bachelor students of the Higher School of Economics who are studying English as a second language. On the basis of the ideas expressed by B. Bloom about the division between lower and higher order thinking skills and by J. Mezirow about transformative learning we designed tasks to enhance higher order thinking skills. These tasks were related to the short stories written by D. Barthelme and printed as a collection, Sixty Stories. To teach the students of both groups (control and experimental), the text-based approach with special techniques to measure the students’ level of understanding and the ability to apply the given information was used. The results of the experiment indicated that the students of both groups made headway in their application of thinking skills. However, the students of the experimental group demonstrated a more significant shift due to the fact that the development of their disposition towards cognitive processes and processed information had been specifically targeted over the course of the first and second stages of the project. Another important outcome of the study was that the participants’ frame of reference was extended which allows us to speculate that the development of sophisticated thinking may result in the change of a person’s interpretation of socio-cultural situation. Hence, a further in-depth study of the issue should be conducted.

The Curriculum and Evaluation Standards (NCTM 1989) states that if we want to improve the nation's mathematics education, it is necessary to change the current method of evaluation that depends on standardized achievement tests. The National Research Council (1989) is even more explicit about the harmful effects of achievement testing.

Indonesian students’ poor performance in the mathematics test of PISA 2015 prompted the decision by the Ministry of Education of Indonesia to pay more attention to the integration of higher-order thinking (HOT) in the curricula starting in 2018. This new regulation emphasizes the need to have a shared understanding of HOT in mathematics on many levels, such as curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment, and among students, teachers and policy makers. This study aims to examine HOT in Indonesian lower secondary mathematics classrooms by assessing students’ ability to demonstrate HOT skills through an open-ended mathematics problem, and by exploring teachers’ views of HOT skills through semi-structured interviews. It involved 372 ninth-grade students and six mathematics teachers from six lower secondary schools in Jakarta and Palembang. The findings show that most students could construct the mathematical model but experienced difficulty in transferring knowledge into new contexts, in applying creative thinking, and with information literacy skills. Besides, some of the teachers were familiar with the concept of HOT, but some viewed HOT as skills for talented students, or HOT problems having a high level of difficulty and long storylines. The knowledge of existing teaching strategies, familiarity with HOT problems, and colleague-support are needed to improve the development of HOT skills in the mathematics classroom.

The purpose of this study is to explore pre-service mathematics teachers' conception of higher-order thinking in Bloom's Taxonomy, to explore pre-service mathematics teachers' ability in categorizing six cognitive levels of Bloom's Taxonomy as lower-order thinking and higher-order thinking, and pre-service mathematics teachers' ability in identifying some questionable items as lower-order and higher-order thinking. The higher-order thinking is the type of non-algorithm thinking which include analytical, evaluative and creative thinking that involves metacognition. This research is a descriptive quantitative research. The data were analyzed and visualized by percentages and diagrams. The participants are 50 Third-Year Students of Mathematics Education Department at Universitas Nusa Cendana. The results showed: (1) pre-service mathematics teachers' conception of lower-order and higher-order thinking more emphasis on the different between the easy and difficult problem, calculation problem and verification problem, conceptual and contextual, and elementary and high-level problem; (2) pre-service mathematics teachers categorized six cognitive levels at the lower-order and higher-order thinking level correctly except at the applying level, preservice mathematics teachers placed it at the higher-order thinking level; (3) pre-service mathematics teacher tend to made the wrong identification of the test questions that were included in the lower-order and higher-order thinking. One of the recommendations is pre-service mathematics teachers should be familiarized of higher-order thinking questions start from their first-year of study in University.

This work analyses students’ failure in the 2019 Nationwide Chemistry Examination in Greece, which concerns secondary education graduates, competing for admission to higher education Greek institutions. The distinction of thinking skills into higher and lower order (HOTS and LOTS) is used as a theoretical tool for this analysis. The examination included several questions that contained HOTS elements that had been unusual in previous examinations. This led to a decrease in overall student performance but better discrimination between outstanding and good students. Based on two samples of examination papers, corresponding to very similar subsets of the student population, the 2018 and 2019 examinations are compared, and the individual 2019 questions are evaluated. It was found that section B of the 2019 examination paper (which included contexts unfamiliar to the students, and for which, a large effect size between 2018 and 2019 was calculated) may have caused the large drop. An important link is established between the 2019 low performance and the HOTS and LOTS features of the questions, and the role or non-role of algorithmic calculations is examined. In addition, the critical opinions of chemistry teachers are provided, with a consensus emerging in favour of connecting chemistry with everyday life. Keywords: chemistry examinations, higher-order cognitive skills, higher-order thinking skills, student assessment, twelfth-grade chemistry.

This research identifies the distribution of reading exercise questions based on the cognitive domains in the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy. It also attempts to change the reading exercise questions from the Lower-order Thinking Skills (LOTS) items into Higher-order Thinking Skills (HOTS) items. Content analysis was used as the research methodology. The subject of the study was the English textbook ‘Bahasa Inggris SMA/MA/SMK/MAK’ for year X high school students published by the Ministry of Education and Culture. Documentation was employed to collect data. The data were analyzed by using an interactive mood technique. Results of the study revealed that the lower-order thinking skills were distributed within 183 items, while that of the higher-order thinking skills were within 63 items. Specifically, the lower order thinking skills items were distributed as follows: Remembering skill with 100 questions, or 41%, understanding skill with 31 items, or 13%, and applying skill with 52 reading questions, or 21%. Meanwhile, the higher order thinking skills comprised analyzing skill with 38 questions or 15%, evaluating skill with 13 questions or 15%, and creating skills with 12 questions, or 5%. To sum up, the data showed the distribution of the higher order thinking skill (25%) was significantly lower than that of lower order thinking skill (75%).

In this study, we attempted to examine the quality of Iranian MA and PhD testing classes to find out how they prepare potential teachers and test makers for the journey of testing in their professional career and whether the exercises and assignments can prepare them to apply higher order thinking in their test construction process.Ten university professors holding PhD in TEFL, along with their students, participated in this study. After recording the assignments and activities, the data were listened, re-listened, and transcribed. The results showed that lower order thinking skills (69.445%) were used more than medium (30.555%) thinking skills in MA testing classroom activities, but higher order thinking skills (0%) were never used. On the other hand, medium order thinking skills (58.335%) were used more than higher order thinking skills (41.665%) in PhD testing classroom activities, and lower order thinking skills were never used. Moreover, activities and assignments given to postgraduate students first led to lower order thinking skills, next led to medium order thinking skills, and finally led to higher order thinking skills. There was a systemic pattern in the distribution of the order of thinking skills of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy in postgraduate activities and assignments. The findings of this study offer several pedagogical implications for students, instructors, and test designers in TEFL.

Past research on higher-order thinking (HOT) was mainly conducted on the bases of educational context in U.S. or western countries. This research aimed to see what kinds of HOT styles actually appear in universtiy students in South Korea. The use of HOT skills were explored in Korean universtiy students and the factors influencing the classification were examined. 1,138 Korean university students were called to respond to Lee’s (2016) Higher-Order-Thinking-Scale for Korean University Students (HOTUS). Then, a latent profile analysis and the multinomial logistic analysis were conducted. The latent profile analysis revealed that the use of HOT skills could be classified into four classes (i.e., a lower-order thinking class, a creative-argumentative class, an analytical-caring class, and a higher-order thinking class). Gender, year, and instructional approach were the determinants of latent profile types. However, there were no differences when measured by academic fields. Students with lower years were likely to fall under lower-order thinking class. The probability that men was classified as a caring class was statistically significantly lower than that of women. Students who received lecturer-centered learning were more likely to fall under the analytical and caring class. Keywords: higher-order thinking skill, latent profile analysis, multinomial logistic analysis.

This study examines various factors associated with students’ mathematics performance, specifically in relation to higher order thinking (HOT) and lower order thinking (LOT). It examines the student-, teacher- and school-level factors, their interrelationships and impact on Year 9 students’ mathematics performance in Aceh, Indonesia. The theoretical basis of this study comes from research on childhood cognitive development and educational theory, educational effectiveness theory, and a review of numerous previous studies related to how variables at student-, teacher- and school-level contribute to students’ mathematics performance. The conceptual framework is a multilevel analysis of the factors influencing students’ performance related to LOT and HOT designed to examine the possible relationships within and between student-, teacher- and school-level variables. Student-level variables include students’ background, attitudes and beliefs, as well as classroom practices as perceived by students. Teacher-level variables include teachers’ background, beliefs, and classroom practices as perceived by teachers. School-level variables include school demographics information and resources. The study employs a quantitative method. Questionnaires and a mathematics test were used to obtain data from students, teachers and schools. Questionnaires were given to students, mathematics teachers and principals/administrators at the schools and a mathematics test administered to the students. The questionnaires were administered to a total of 1135 Year 9 students, 46 Year 9 mathematics teachers and 25 schools from one major city (representing the urban area) and one district (representing the rural area) in the province of Aceh, Indonesia. Scales in the questionnaires were validated using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Rasch analysis. The data was then analysed employing single-level and multilevel analysis techniques. Partial least squares path analysis (PLS-PA) and hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) were employed to examine the relationships between variables tested in this study. The results from the single-level analysis using PLS-PA show that there are five variables directly influencing students’ mathematics performance relating to LOT: (a) students’ beliefs concerning mathematics related to LOT; (b) gender; (c) school location; (d) socio-economic status (SES); and (e) students’ attitude of liking mathematics. The multilevel analysis using HLM indicates that there are seven variables (three at student-level, three at teacher-level and one at school-level) that have a direct impact on the students’ mathematics performance related to LOT: (a) students’ liking of mathematics; (b) students’ beliefs concerning mathematics related to LOT; (c) students’ beliefs concerning mathematics related to HOT; (d) teachers’ professional development; (e) instructional activities; (f) teachers’ beliefs concerning mathematics related to HOT; and (g) school resources. The results from the single-level analysis using PLS-PA indicate that four variables directly influence students’ mathematics performance related to HOT, namely: (a) students’ mathematics performance related to LOT; (b) students’ educational expectations; (c) SES; and (d) school location. The multilevel analysis using HLM indicates seven variables (four at student-level, two at teacher-level and one at school-level) that directly influence student mathematics performance related to HOT, namely: (a) students’ mathematics performance related to LOT; (b) students’ educational expectations; (c) students’ individual judgement of mathematics ability; (d) students’ beliefs concerning mathematics related to LOT; (e) teacher certification; (f) teachers’ beliefs concerning mathematics teaching related to HOT; and (g) the availability of a ‘Mathematics Olympiad’ club at the schools. This study contributes to the literature of how student-, teacher- and school-level variables influence students’ mathematics performance related to LOT and HOT, especially in the context of Aceh, Indonesia, a developing nation. This study also provides empirical evidence of Acehnese students’ mathematics performance related to LOT and HOT, indicating their poor performance in questions related to both LOT and HOT. While students throughout the world struggle with mathematics problems that require HOT, in Aceh, and Indonesia in general, students are still struggling with LOT. This is clearly a subject of a great concern for the development of mathematics education in Aceh and Indonesia. As the current trends in education have shifted from lower order to higher order thinking, Indonesia as a rapidly developing nation needs to meet the challenge of progressing the nation’s education. Thus, the findings of this study have important implications for the improvement of mathematics teaching and learning in Aceh, Indonesia. Mathematics teaching and learning that improve both lower order thinking and higher order thinking skills should be of major concern for Indonesia and the efficient mathematics education of its students.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Education, 2018.

The study focused on pertinent challenges and key guidelines in introducing and assessing students’ higher order thinking skills (HOTS) in a literature based English foreign language (EFL) curriculum. A curricular initiative in Israel, namely to integrate HOTS in the teaching and learning of literature in the high school EFL classes, prompted this study to measure its effectiveness on students’ abilities to understand and apply the HOTS in their reading and writing. This mixed-methods study dealt with the following research questions: Are HOTS innate skills or must they be purposefully taught in order for students to learn and to apply them? To what extent has 10th and 11th grade EFL Israeli students’ ability to apply HOTS to their bridging essays, after completing two years in the English literature programme, been improved? How accurately could students demonstrate an understanding of HOTS by naming them and by providing an example of how they could apply them in the areas of reading and writing? The overall key findings showed that; HOTS must be taught and practiced in order for students to learn and to apply them and that teaching students to use HOTS will improve their reading and writing capabilities in regard to higher order thinking as well as their understanding of specific HOTS. It was also found that students enjoy the challenge of infusing HOTS into a literature curriculum and expressing what they learn in their writing. They are consequently motivated to learn when they are challenged with a programme that infuses HOTS into an EFL literature curriculum. Implications of the findings are that the subject specific approach and infusion method for teaching HOTS are successful in the EFL classroom. The findings provide a novel contribution to the study of HOTS pedagogy within a literature based EFL curriculum programme. Recommendations for further studies are made, particularly on HOTS vis-à-vis weaker EFL students as well as on examining different writing formats, such as opinion essays, to determine if HOTS are transferring to other types of writing after students’ participation in this curricular initiative.
Curriculum and Instructional Studies
D. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)

It's impossible, now, to think of modernism without thinking about gender, sexuality, and the diverse movers and shakers of the early twentieth century. But this was not always so. This book examines biographical projects that modernist women writers undertook to resist the exclusion of their friends, colleagues, lovers, and companions from literary history. Many of these works were vibrant efforts of modernist countermemory and counterhistory that became casualties in a midcentury battle for literary legitimacy, but that now add a new dimension to our appreciation of such figures as Radclyffe Hall, Gertrude Stein, Hope Mirrlees, and Sylvia Beach, among many others. The book explores an extensive body of material, including Sylvia Townsend Warner's carefullly annotated letters to her partner Valentine Ackland, Djuna Barnes's fragmented drafts about the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Margaret Anderson's collection of modernist artifacts, and Virginia Woolf's joke biography of her friend and lover Vita Sackville-West, the novel Orlando. Whether published in encoded desire or squirreled away in intimate archives, these “passion projects” recorded life then in order to summon an audience now, and stand as important predecessors of queer and feminist recovery projects that have shaped the contemporary understanding of the field. Arguing for the importance of biography, the book shows how women turned to this genre in the early twentieth century to preserve their lives and communities for future generations to discover.

Economy and mankind are inextricably interlinked. Just as the economy or the production of material wealth is unimaginable without a man, so human existence and development are impossible without the wealth created in the economy. Shortly, both the goal and the means of achieving and realization of the economy are still the human resources. People have long ago noticed that it was the economy that created livelihoods, and the delays in their production led to the catastrophic events such as hunger, poverty, civil wars, social upheavals, revolutions, moral degeneration, and more. Therefore, the special interest of people in understanding the regulatory framework of the functioning of the economy has existed and exists in all historical epochs [A. Sisvadze. Economic theory. Part One. 2006y. p. 22]. The system of economic disciplines studies economy or economic activities of a society. All of them are based on science, which is currently called economic theory in the post-socialist space (the science of economics, the principles of economics or modern economics), and in most countries of the world - predominantly in the Greek-Latin manner - economics. The title of the present book is also Modern Economics. Economics (economic theory) is the science that studies the efficient use of limited resources to produce and distribute goods and services in order to satisfy as much as possible the unlimited needs and demands of the society. More simply, economics is the science of choice and how society manages its limited resources. Moreover, it should be emphasized that economics (economic theory) studies only the distribution, exchange and consumption of the economic wealth (food, beverages, clothing, housing, machine tools, computers, services, etc.), the production of which is possible and limited. And the wealth that exists indefinitely: no economic relations are formed in the production and distribution of solar energy, air, and the like. This current book is the second complete updated edition of the challenges of the modern global economy in the context of the coronary crisis, taking into account some of the priority directions of the country's development. Its purpose is to help students and interested readers gain a thorough knowledge of economics and show them how this knowledge can be applied pragmatically (professionally) in professional activities or in everyday life. To achieve this goal, this textbook, which consists of two parts and tests, discusses in simple and clear language issues such as: the essence of economics as a science, reasons for origin, purpose, tasks, usefulness and functions; Basic principles, problems and peculiarities of economics in different economic systems; Needs and demand, the essence of economic resources, types and limitations; Interaction, mobility, interchangeability and efficient use of economic resources. The essence and types of wealth; The essence, types and models of the economic system; The interaction of households and firms in the market of resources and products; Market mechanism and its elements - demand, supply and price; Demand and supply elasticity; Production costs and the ways to reduce them; Forms of the market - perfect and incomplete competition markets and their peculiarities; Markets for Production Factors and factor incomes; The essence of macroeconomics, causes and importance of origin; The essence and calculation of key macroeconomic indicators (gross national product, gross domestic product, net national product, national income, etc.); Macroeconomic stability and instability, unemployment, inflation and anti-inflationary policies; State regulation of the economy and economic policy; Monetary and fiscal policy; Income and standard of living; Economic Growth; The Corona Pandemic as a Defect and Effect of Globalization; National Economic Problems and New Opportunities for Development in the conditions of the Coronary Crisis; The Socio-economic problems of moral obsolescence in digital technologies; Education and creativity are the main solution way to overcome the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus; Positive and negative effects of tourism in Georgia; Formation of the middle class as a contributing factor to the development of tourism in Georgia; Corporate culture in Georgian travel companies, etc. The axiomatic truth is that economics is the union of people in constant interaction. Given that the behavior of the economy reflects the behavior of the people who make up the economy, after clarifying the essence of the economy, we move on to the analysis of the four principles of individual decision-making. Furtermore, the book describes how people make independent decisions. The key to making an individual decision is that people have to choose from alternative options, that the value of any action is measured by the value of what must be given or what must be given up to get something, that the rational, smart people make decisions based on the comparison of the marginal costs and marginal returns (benefits), and that people behave accordingly to stimuli. Afterwards, the need for human interaction is then analyzed and substantiated. If a person is isolated, he will have to take care of his own food, clothes, shoes, his own house and so on. In the case of such a closed economy and universalization of labor, firstly, its productivity will be low and, secondly, it will be able to consume only what it produces. It is clear that human productivity will be higher and more profitable as a result of labor specialization and the opportunity to trade with others. Indeed, trade allows each person to specialize, to engage in the activities that are most successful, be it agriculture, sewing or construction, and to buy more diverse goods and services from others at a relatively lower price. The key to such human interactions is that trade is mutually beneficial; That markets are usually the good means of coordination between people and that the government can improve the results of market functioning if the market reveals weakness or the results of market functioning are not fair. Moroever, it also shows how the economy works as a whole. In particular, it is argued that productivity is a key determinant of living standards, that an increase in the money supply is a major source of inflation, and that one of the main impediments to avoiding inflation is the existence of an alternative between inflation and unemployment in the short term, that the inflation decrease causes the temporary decline in unemployement and vice versa. The Understanding creatively of all above mentioned issues, we think, will help the reader to develop market economy-appropriate thinking and rational economic-commercial-financial behaviors, to be more competitive in the domestic and international labor markets, and thus to ensure both their own prosperity and the functioning of the country's economy. How he/she copes with the tasks, it is up to the individual reader to decide. At the same time, we will receive all the smart useful advices with a sense of gratitude and will take it into account in the further work. We also would like to thank the editor and reviewers of the books. Finally, there are many things changing, so it is very important to realize that the XXI century has come: 1. The century of the new economy; 2. Age of Knowledge; 3. Age of Information and economic activities are changing in term of innovations. 1. Why is the 21st century the century of the new economy? Because for this period the economic resources, especially non-productive, non-recoverable ones (oil, natural gas, coal, etc.) are becoming increasingly limited. According to the World Energy Council, there are currently 43 years of gas and oil reserves left in the world (see “New Commersant 2007 # 2, p. 16). Under such conditions, sustainable growth of real gross domestic product (GDP) and maximum satisfaction of uncertain needs should be achieved not through the use of more land, labor and capital (extensification), but through more efficient use of available resources (intensification) or innovative economy. And economics, as it was said, is the science of finding the ways about the more effective usage of the limited resources. At the same time, with the sustainable growth and development of the economy, the present needs must be met in a way that does not deprive future generations of the opportunity to meet their needs; 2. Why is the 21st century the age of knowledge? Because in a modern economy, it is not land (natural resources), labor and capital that is crucial, but knowledge. Modern production, its factors and products are not time-consuming and capital-intensive, but science-intensive, knowledge-intensive. The good example of this is a Japanese enterprise (firm) where the production process is going on but people are almost invisible, also, the result of such production (Japanese product) is a miniature or a sample of how to get the maximum result at the lowest cost; 3. Why is the 21st century the age of information? Because the efficient functioning of the modern economy, the effective organization of the material and personal factors of production largely depend on the right governance decision. The right governance decision requires prompt and accurate information. Gone are the days when the main means of transport was a sailing ship, the main form of data processing was pencil and paper, and the main means of transmitting information was sending letters through a postman on horseback. By the modern transport infrastructure (highways, railways, ships, regular domestic and international flights, oil and gas pipelines, etc.), the movement of goods, services and labor resoucres has been significantly accelerated, while through the modern means of communication (mobile phone, internet, other) the information is spreading rapidly globally, which seems to have "shrunk" the world and made it a single large country. The Authors of the book: Ushangi Samadashvili, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Associate Professor of Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University - Introduction, Chapters - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11,12, 15,16, 17.1,18 , Tests, Revaz Shengelia, Doctor of Economics, Professor of Georgian Technical University, Chapters_7, 8, 13. 14, 17.2, 17.4; Zhuzhuna Tsiklauri - Doctor of Economics, Professor of Georgian Technical University - Chapters 13.6, 13.7,17.2, 17.3, 18. We also thank the editor and reviewers of the book.

Implicit cognition is an intriguing area of focus when one considers the impact of implicit memory theories upon each learner's cognitive vulnerability when framed through Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain. Specifically, consider the learner's cognitive understanding and movement from the lower order thinking skills, say from the Knowledge realm and Comprehension realm, towards the higher order thinking skills, Synthesis realm and Evaluation realm, or one of the revised domains to reflect Digital Age expectations. Although much is available on the different levels of cognitive achievement, the “in between” leaps in a learner's ability to work with the information in new and different manners may suggest that the cognitive vulnerability may impact the learner's implicit memory and the learner's movement between different taxonomic levels of informational understanding.

The current chapter examines the relationship between facets of cognitive abilities and relevant learning activities by drawing on literature pertaining to higher- and lower-order critical thinking. Specific discussions were made on cognitive architecture and deep learning, modality and information process, and cognitive abilities and levels of process in learning activities. The cognitive ability-learning activity matrix was proposed to (1) raise attention to the relationship between cognitive abilities and relevant learning activities in transversal critical thinking in game-based learning and (2) guide educators, teachers, and professional trainers to facilitate effective transversal of critical thinking skills across domains, disciplines, and learning communities. Discussions of the theoretical and practical significance of the proposed matrix were made. Recommendations for future research were proposed to guide the direction and practice in fostering transversal skills in game-based learning.

The use of TED talks in EAP has gained popularity in recent years and they are promoted through coursebooks as a means of simultaneously developing listening and critical thinking skills. However, a traditional comprehension approach to teaching listening; one that focuses on testing lower-order thinking skills through discrete questions may be inadequate as a gateway into a critical consideration of broader issues for second language learners. With the practical purpose of developing a teaching approach to using TED talks informed by current theory, the chapter begins with a consideration of how critical thinking processes and top-down and bottom-up listening processes can be integrated into a singular model. Based on this framework, a genre analysis of the TED talk is made by taking a learner’s perspective in order to identify cognitive and affective barriers to listening that may restrict opportunities for critical thinking. In the discussion that follows, five activities are suggested for use with TED talks in listening classes that support top-down and bottom-up listening processes, and which set students up to analyse and evaluate the thesis and underlying structure of a TED talk, providing a solid foundation from which to approach discussion topics critically and reflectively.

People sometimes hold irrational beliefs even when empirical evidence obviously debunks claims central to beliefs. This chapter reviews empirical studies exploring underlying psychological processes of holding empirically suspect beliefs with a particular focus on belief in pseudoscience. The author explains empirical findings from a dual process view of thinking. Recent studies show individuals with higher analytic tendency exhibit more ideologically polarized reasoning than those with lower analytical tendency. These results suggest a significance of motivated reasoning in order to fully understand the psychological mechanism of everyday beliefs. Future research suggestions emphasize remaining questions, such as a developmental time course of, a cultural diversity of, and evolutional origins and functions of the belief in pseudoscience.

This chapter argues that dehumanization is much more complex than merely thinking of other people as lower forms of life. When people dehumanize others, they think of them as both human and subhuman at the same time, and as violating the categorical distinctions that are supposed to underpin the natural order. Filth and disease are repulsive, so it is in the interest of dehumanizers to instill or reinforce the belief that members of the dehumanized group are a source of pollution. Dehumanized people are often seen as harbingers of disorder, pollution, and disease. And even though these people are almost always marginalized and vulnerable, they are depicted as and treated as though they are profoundly threatening—thus justifying the violence against them.

Chapter 5 argues for the crucial importance for Coleridge’s philosophy of Böhme, whose works he annotated more than any other writer. Section 5.1 discusses Coleridge’s views of various mystics and of the poles of mysticism: one side valued for its sensuous connection, yet found prone to mistake inner idiosyncrasies for noetic insight; the other side, the transcendence-directed contemplation of mystics such as the Christian neo-Platonic Victorines. Section 5.2 argues that the chiasmic crux of Böhme’s thinking inspired three Coleridgean mainstays: the interpenetration of opposites, the intercirculation of energies, and the chiasmus between higher and lower levels. Section 5.3 further argues that an important form of Coleridge’s pentadic logical schemata, which includes his pentad of the ‘Powers of Nature’ and his ‘Order of the Mental Powers’, derives from his fusing Böhme’s transmutational, chiasmic schema of ‘The Seven Forms of Spirits’ with the Christian neo-Platonic, linear, hierarchical ascent from sensus to contemplatio.

This chapter addresses a curriculum definition, especially as it relates to preparing teachers to be successful in working with adult learners. The main thrust is to clearly articulate some of the major elements needed to help the art and science of helping adults learn the ideas and practices of that process and be as consistent/congruent as feasible. Reciprocity among empathy, trust, and sensitivity are considered to be crucial in the teaching and learning exchange. Competence and experience in andragogy is important even to the extent of selecting and using various techniques and methods in the learning experience, whether used with learners in higher-order thinking or used with lower-level learners. Techniques the author has found helpful are: mixing a lecture with discussion of questions raised by learners in response to content of the lecture; encouraging and giving learners opportunity to take more responsibility for their learning, thus becoming more self-directed; varying one's approach for accommodating different learning styles each learner possesses; looking at a perspective of learning in various areas/pillars of life – being, knowing, doing, living together, changing, and developing sustainability. A true story is provided illustrating a principle of andragogy – doing in practice the same thing one believes and says.

This chapter views the “Periclean Building Program” through the lens of Actor Network Theory, in order to explore the ways in which the construction of these buildings transformed Athenian society and politics in the fifth century BC. It begins by applying some Actor Network Theory concepts to the process that was involved in getting approval for the building program as described by Thucydides and Plutarch in his Life of Pericles. Actor Network Theory blends entanglement (human-material thing interdependence) with network thinking, so it allows us to reframe our views to include social networks when we think about the political debate and social tensions in Athens that arose from Pericles’s proposal to construct the Parthenon and Propylaea on the Athenian Acropolis, the Telesterion at Eleusis, the Odeon at the base of the South slope of the Acropolis, and the long wall to Peiraeus. Social Network Analysis can model the social networks, and the clusters within them, that existed in mid-fifth century Athens. By using Social Network Analysis we can then show how the construction work itself transformed a fractious city into a harmonious one through sustained, collective efforts that engaged large numbers of lower class citizens, all responding to each other’s needs in a chaine operatoire..

Recently, one has become concerned about the quality of natural science and social education basics of the primary school students. Particular attention is devoted to the higher-order thinking ability education. In the qualitative research, it was analysed what higher order thinking questions and tasks primary school teachers apply in the world cognition lessons. Research data were gathered using a lesson observation method. The gathered data were analysed making a technical picture. Research results showed that primary school teachers proportionally applied lower and higher-order thinking questions and tasks. Keywords: world cognition lessons, higher order thinking abilities, primary education.

Today’s increasingly complex engineering workplace demands skill in evaluation, reasoning and critical thinking; however, engineering curricula often test lower-order learning at the expense of higher-order reasoning. This paper analyzes the level of cognitive demand in a course on Material Science in the Department of Mechanical Engineering Science at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. This is done by applying Biggs’ SOLO taxonomy to classify test and exam questions in the course and then analyzing student performance against this taxonomy of higher- and lower-order learning. The results demonstrate that many students battle with questions that require extended abstract reasoning (argument, evaluation, hypothesizing and generalization). Similarly, relational thinking (through comparison, contrast, application and so on) proves to be a significant problem for weaker students. The paper recommends that engineering lecturers build higher-order thinking into course outcomes, teaching and assessment and that engineering qualifications work systematically towards developing students as higher-order thinkers.

Two vital skills for an engineering graduate are the abilities to reason and communicate effectively. Laboratory work is one of the principle ways in which students exercise these competencies. In a typical undergraduate engineering course (particularly those at the freshman or sophomore level), laboratory exercises are often designed for students (rather than by them). They must simply follow procedures to find pre-determined results in order to “drive home” theoretical concepts. As a result, students are left with a poor concept of the purpose and power of experimentation, and consequently the laboratory experience detracts from rather than bolstering their critical thinking skills. A one factor at a time approach is often the default method for undergraduate engineering experiments, and while it is relevant for acquiring initial skills at the freshmen and sophomore levels, the approach may only promote lower level thinking skills. Even so, these experiences are pivoting in establishing sound engineering practices among students. In addition, statistical design of experiments could be explored for implementation for junior and senior level design courses. This project sought to provide an example of higher order thinking by performing a statistically-designed beam deflection experiment. The experimental objectives were to determine if load, span, geometry, and material affected the deflection of simply supported beams and to identify significant nuisance factors. Key nuisance effects included support stiffness, the reaction measurement procedure, and the effect of built-up members. In conclusion, the paper points out how undergraduate students could benefit from exposure and participation in such a design of experiments process even though students were not involved in this study originally.

In the UK there is a new National Curriculum where procedural techniques are given much lower prominence and subject content greatly reduced. There is greater emphasis on skills and processes that individuals can use in order make all young people successful learners, confident individuals and responsible citizens. I shall illustrate how this is an opportunity for statistical education to play a greater role both within mathematical education and also in cross curricula dimensions and important personal, learning and thinking skills. Within the mathematics curriculum the key processes have a great similarity to the Statistical Problem Solving Cycle and offer us the incentive to drive statistical education forward. I shall explore ideas and possibilities for ways to engage on the next steps forward. The paper may have a UK emphasis but the vast majority of ideas included are easily transferable to other countries and different school settings.

Recent evidence suggests that academic staff face difficulties in applying new technologies as a means of assessing higher order assessment outcomes such as critical thinking, problem solving and creativity. Although higher education institutional mission statements and course unit outlines purport the value of these higher order skills there is still some question about how well academics are equipped to design curricula and, in particular, assessment strategies accordingly. Despite a rhetoric avowing the benefits of these higher order skills, it has been suggested that academics set assessment tasks up in such a way as to inadvertently lead students on the path towards lower order outcomes. This is a controversial claim, and one that this papers seeks to explore and critique in terms of challenging the conceptual basis of assessing higher order skills through new technologies. It is argued that the use of digital media in higher education is leading to a focus on students’ ability to use and manipulate of these products as an index of their flexibility and adaptability to the demands of the knowledge economy. This focus mirrors market flexibility and encourages programmes and courses of study to be rhetorically packaged as such. Curricular content has become a means to procure more or less elaborate aggregates of attributes. Higher education is now charged with producing graduates who are entrepreneurial and creative in order to drive forward economic sustainability. It is argued that critical independent learning can take place through the democratisation afforded by cultural and knowledge digitization and that assessment needs to acknowledge the changing relations between audience and author, expert and amateur, creator and consumer.

In order for renewable energy to displace 20% or more of the conventional power generating base without depending on significant hot spinning reserves, reliable and cost effective energy storage will be needed at the utility scale. Developing and deploying practical energy storage at this level is a major challenge and no single technology appears to have a dominant position. Storing electrical energy by way of thermal storage at moderate-to-low temperatures has not received much attention in the past. In fact, the conventional thinking is that heat pump/heat engine mediated energy storage is too inefficient (round trip efficiency of 30% or lower) to be practical. However, an innovative and efficient storage approach is proposed in this paper by incorporating sensible heat storage in a Rankine-type heat pump/heat engine cycle to increase the round trip efficiency. Furthermore, by using a source of waste (or otherwise low-grade) heat, round trip efficiencies can be enhanced further. Currently, there appears to be no significant linkage between waste heat recovery and grid-level energy storage, although the market opportunity for each is considerable. Using the thermal approach described here, a system can be created that uses very low-grade heat in the range between 50 to 70 °C. Furthermore, conventional technology can be used to implement the system where no extreme conditions are present anywhere in the cycle. Hence, it is thought to have advantages over other energy storage concepts being developed.