Hot Skills ― Developing Higher-order Thinking in Young Learners

Too many teaching and learning activities require students to use only lower-order thinking (LOT), and many of the attempts educators make to promote higher-order thinking (HOT) are misconstrued. Higher-order thinking makes teaching and learning more engaging and intentional, adds intellectual rigor to any curriculum, and aids in the development of some important life skills among young learners
Even preschoolers are capable of a great deal of higher-order thinking. Infusing a play-based curriculum with activities and interactions that promote higher-order thinking creates the type of play that fosters cognitive, language, physical, and social development. It is important to start developing students’ higher-order thinking skills when they are young, and this book provides numerous strategies for doing so. Most of the activities are in the form of open-ended interactive games that can be easily modified to be responsive to variety of cultures and to meet a range of learning abilities, styles, and intelligences.

Steffen Saifer, EdD, is an international consultant and writer based in Spain. His previous work includes leading the development of a national kindergarten curriculum in the Republic of Georgia for UNICEF and helping to develop and implement a master's degree program in early childhood leadership in Russia for the Open Society Foundations. Steffen has also worked in Belarus, Hungary, Bangladesh, The Gambia, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, among other countries. Earlier in his career, he was an early childhood teacher, Head Start director, a college instructor, an education specialist for Head Start programs in four Pacific Northwest states, and a director of the Child & Family Program at Education Northwest in Portland, Oregon.