Teaching Strategies that Enhance Higher-Order Thinking

By: Janelle Cox

One of the main 21st century components that teachers want their students to use are
higher-order thinking skills. This is when students use complex ways to think about what
they are learning.

Higher-order thinking takes thinking to a whole new level. Students using it are
understanding higher levels rather than just memorizing math facts. They would have to
understand the facts, infer them, and connect them to other concepts.

Saysay-Husay-Sarili: SHS Teaching Framework

Saysay-Husay-Sarili (Meaning-Mastery-Ownership), the Senior High School teaching

framework, is at the core of the Aligned Classroom Instruction Delivery (ACID) Plan
introduced during the 3-day 2017 DepEd-PEAC’s In-Service Training (INSET) for Senior
High School (SHS) for Teachers in Private Schools held at the Lyceum of the Philippines
University-Calamba which ran from July 26-28, 2017.

Highlights of the In-Service Training (INSET)

Given the opportunity to participate in the training, I came to realize how successful and
productive it was; hence, the following were the highlights:

 SHS teachers in private schools had the opportunity to identify and address new
challenges that face learning experiences and teaching practices in the senior high
school levels.
 SHS teachers became well-informed about the SHS teaching framework and the
imperative alignment among content and performance standards, learning
competencies, assessment tools and techniques, and enabling teaching strategies.
 With workshops and teaching demonstrations, SHS teachers shared and showcased
their expertise, experiences, best classroom practices, and effective teaching
strategies.
 Certified SHS teachers earned 15 Continuing Professional Development (CPD) units
required by Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) upon renewal of PRC ID.

Breaking Down Saysay-Husay-Sarili (SHS Teaching Framework)

Saysay (Meaning) corresponds to the why of the lesson. Senior High School teachers should
facilitate an understanding of the value of the lessons for each learner to engage fully in the
content on both the cognitive and affective levels. It further emphasizes the teaching of
real-life skills in the 21st century settings, hence providing authentic examples and
concepts that address real-life problems and challenges.

Husay (Mastery) emphasizes the how of the lesson, the mastery of the competencies and
higher order thinking skills (HOTS) among learners. With this, SHS teachers should allow
more avenues for the learners to analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and create.
Sarili (Ownership) highlights the what to do with the lesson. SHS teachers should empower
learners to take ownership of their learning on the backdrop of developing their
independence and self-direction – the holistic development of self. With saysay and husay,
learners know what to do with the pieces of knowledge and skills in the development of
globally competitive young Filipino learners.

Aligned Classroom Instruction Delivery (ACID) Plan

Aligned Classroom Instruction Delivery (ACID) Plan is a guide for Senior High School (SHS)
teachers in developing the content of every part of the teaching guide (TG) or daily lesson
plan, hence ensuring the alignment of all learning activities with the standards and
competencies specified in the curriculum guide (CG) issued by the Department of
Education.

What is an Alignment Principle? Alignment Principle is a rule applied in the

implementation of a curriculum guide (CG). It (a) articulates assessment activities from the
standards and competencies specified in the curriculum guide, (b) ensures that assessment
activities respond to the thinking skills needed to be developed among the learners, and (c)
defines effective teaching strategies that enable learners to develop thinking skills, and
perform tasks demanded by performance standards (Montalan, 2015).

How is the Curriculum Guide (CG) Implemented? As expected, the curriculum guide issued
by the Department of Education incorporates and emphasizes the saysay-husay-sarili SHS
teaching framework. Montalan (2015) identifies three general steps in implementing the
curriculum guide:

1. Define the PURPOSE in including the subject in the SHS curriculum. The question on
why the subject must be taught in senior high school may be fully answered by the
Culminating Performance Standard – can be defined by the first or last performance
standards in the curriculum guide, hence the culminating performance standard
that identifies the Performance Task (PT). Other tasks demanded by enabling
performance standards, or the Performance Checks (PC), check the readiness of the
learners to perform the big task.

2. Articulate the necessary THINKING SKILLS to develop among the learners to enable
them to carry out the Performance Task. Identify the highest thinking skills required
to carry out the Performance Task (PT). These thinking skills are identified in
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Domains. Given below are (1) the KUD classification
levels (Knowing, Understanding, Doing), (2) Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy Levels
(Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating), and
(3) Enabling General Teaching Strategies (Representation, Connections,
Communication, Reasoning and Proof, and Problem Solving):

KUD Classification: KNOWING

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (RBT) Levels: Remembering, Understanding
Enabling General Teaching Strategies: Representation
 KUD Classification: UNDERSTANDING
Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (RBT) Levels: Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating
Enabling General Teaching Strategies: Connections, Communication, Reasoning and
Proof
KUD Classification: DOING
Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (RBT) Level: Creating
Enabling General Teaching Strategy: Problem Solving

3. Identify appropriate TEACHING STRATEGIES that are necessary in developing the

levels of thinking. As shown above, there are five Enabling General Teaching
Strategies (Representation, Connections, Communication, Reasoning and Proof, and
Problem Solving) that can be very helpful for SHS teachers in coming up with
appropriated specific teaching strategies (e.g., Gallery Walk, Think-Pair-Share,
Quescussion, Two Column Method, etc.) You can download a sample Aligned
Classroom Instruction Delivery (ACID) Plan here.

What are the parts of a Teaching Guide (TG)? A Teaching Guide (TG) is a concrete teaching
blueprint that demonstrates the alignment to the DepEd SHS curriculum guide, hence the
actualization of the saysay-husay-sarili SHS teaching framework. Its basic parts are (1)
Introduction, (2) Motivation, (3) Instruction Delivery, (4) Practice, (5) Enrichment, and (6)
Evaluation. You can download a sample Teaching Guide (TG) here.

Definition of a Graphic Organizer

A graphic organizer is a visual display that demonstrates relationships between facts,
concepts or ideas. A graphic organizer guides the learner’s thinking as they fill in and build
upon a visual map or diagram. They are also informally used as a term to describe all visual
learning strategies such as concept mapping, webbing, mind mapping, and more.

Types of Graphic Organizers

Webs, concept maps, mind maps and plots such as stack plots and Venn diagrams are some
of the types of graphic organizers used in visual learning to enhance thinking skills and
improve academic performance on written papers, tests and homework assignments.

Think-Pair-Share (TPS) is a collaborative learning strategy in which students work

together to solve a problem or answer a question about an assigned reading. This
technique requires students to (1) think individually about a topic or answer to a question;
and (2) share ideas with classmates. Discussing an answer with a partner serves to
maximize participation, focus attention and engage students in comprehending the reading
material.

Here are 10 teaching strategies to enhance higher-order thinking skills in your students.

1. Help Determine What Higher-Order Thinking Is

Help students understand what higher-order thinking is. Explain to them what it is and
why they need it. Help them understand their own strengths and challenges. You can do
this by showing them how they can ask themselves good questions. That leads us to the
next strategy.

2. Connect Concepts
Lead students through the process of how to connect one concept to another. By doing this
you are teaching them to connect what they already know with what they are learning. This
level of thinking will help students learn to make connections whenever it is possible,
which will help them gain even more understanding. For example, let’s say that the concept
they are learning is “Chinese New Year.” An even broader concept would be “Holidays.”

3. Teach Students to Infer

Teach students to make inferences by giving them “real-world” examples. You can start by
giving students a picture of a people standing in line at a soup kitchen. Ask them to look at
the picture and focus on the details. Then, ask them to make inferences based on what they
see in the picture. Another way to teach young students about how to infer is to teach an
easy concept like weather. Ask students to put on their raincoat and boots, then ask them
to infer what they think the weather looks like outside.

4. Encourage Questioning
A classroom where students feel free to ask questions without any negative reactions from
their peers or their teachers is a classroom where students feel free to be creative.
Encourage students to ask questions, and if for some reason you can’t get to their question
during class time, show them how they can answer it themselves or have them save the
question until the following day.

5. Use Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers provide students with a nice way to frame their thoughts in an
organized manner. By drawing diagrams or mind maps, students are able to better connect
concepts and see their relationships. This will help students develop a habit of connecting
concepts.

6. Teach Problem-Solving Strategies

Teach students to use a step-by-step method for solving problems. This way of higher-
order thinking will help them solve problems faster and more easily. Encourage students to
use alternative methods to solve problems as well as offer them different problem-solving
methods.

7. Encourage Creative Thinking

Creative thinking is when students invent, imagine, and design what they are thinking.
Using creative senses helps students process and understand information better. Research
shows that when students utilize creative higher-order thinking skills, it indeed increases
their understanding. Encourage students to think “outside of the box.”

8. Use Mind Movies

When concepts that are being learned are difficult, encourage students to create a movie in
their mind. Teach them to close their eyes and picture it like a movie playing. This way of
higher-order thinking will truly help them understand in a powerful, unique way.

9. Teach Students to Elaborate Their Answers

Higher-order thinking requires students to really understand a concept, not repeat it or
memorize it. Encourage students to elaborate their answers by asking the right questions
that make students explain their thoughts in more detail.

10. Teach QARs

Question-Answer-Relationships, or QARs, teach students to label the type of question that
is being asked and then use that information to help them formulate an answer. Students
must decipher if the answer can be found in a text or online or if they must rely on their
own prior knowledge to answer it. This strategy has been found to be effective for higher-
order thinking because students become more aware of the relationship between the
information in a text and their prior knowledge, which helps them decipher which strategy
to use when they need to seek an answer.