Ch. 8 bloooooooog

Andrew Hogan

10/22/14

Ch. 8 Blog

This weeks readings revolved around the concept of higher level thinking. Prior to  his chapter we have been learning about the different methods to relay information to students, however chapter 8 discusses for the first time the benefits of asking students to apply the knowledge or think critically about what they have learned in order to solve problems and bolster retention of the topic.

While I found the types of assignments recommended by the text to promote higher level thinking beneficial, and will undoubtedly use many of them in my classroom, the most important concept discussed in this chapter is the idea of metacognition. Metacognition, which is just a fancy way to say “thinking about how you think” is the cornerstone to good study habits. I greatly appreciated table 8.1 which provides different ways that a teacher may engage students with metacognitive strategies, however, this chapter would be stronger if it gave more examples of assignments that involved metacognition.

Another concept discussed briefly in this chapter was the idea of information being 

perceived by children as context-free, which is to say that children often do not see how 

different subjects overlap and intertwine. To some extent this makes sense, I study primarily 

history, therefor my math and science skills are almost nonexistent. To the same point, 

however, I understand that every event pushed forward in history is in large part due to one 

technological advancement or another, and any advancement in technology is just applied 

math. It seems to me that it is our duty as educators, particularly in secondary education to 

relate that subjects we are passionate about to all aspects of the students life, and that includes

interdisciplinary studies. This is another section that I feel the text should have elaborated on 

more.