Lesson 7 IT for Higher Thinking Skills and Creativity

A new challenge has arisen for today’s learners and this is not simply to achieve learning objectives but to encourage the development of students who can do more than receive, recall, recite, and apply the knowledge they have acquired. Today, students are expected to be not only cognitive, but also flexible, analytical and creative.

There are methods proposed for the use of computer-based technologies as an integral support to higher thinking skills and creativity.

The Upgraded Project Method:

The modern day teacher can now be guided on his goal to help students achieve higher level thinking skills and creativity beyond the ordinary benchmark of the student’s passing, even excelling achievement tests.

The project method for higher learning outcomes consists in having the students work on projects with depth, complexity, duration and relevance to the real world.

The Process

The process of project implementation takes the students to the steps, efforts, and experiences in project completion.

Examples of IT-based projects:

·        Resource-based projects

·        Simple creations

·        Guided hyper-media projects

·        Web-based projects

Discussion:

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

ü No, the teachers should still be there to help the learners excel in their achievement tests since there is a big difference when the teacher is there to approach compared to when their presence is not there.

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

ü Yes. But since we are limited, it takes time to be achieved without the educational technology tools. Therefore, it is easier and faster to achieve with these tools.

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.)

ü Yes. It can surely help for the development of higher thinking skills and creativity projects since computers have photos, graphics, and video that can be used to express clearly what the learner wants to and also for every lesson to be effective according to how he/she presents the lesson.