How Do You Teach Higher-Order Thinking in Math?

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How do you teach higher-order thinking in math?

You don’t start there.

You can’t teach “critical thinking” in a day.

You can’t teach “problem solving” in the abstract.

You have to build it one step at a time.

Learning is like climbing a staircase.

Each step is a new skill or concept.

However, different students have different stair-climbing abilities.

And many students never reach the top because the stairs are too tall.

The trick is to split individual stairs into even smaller stairs.

The smaller the individual stairs, the more students can climb to the top.

Further reading: Cognitive Science of Learning: Minimizing Cognitive Load .

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