Teach It, Tech It, Learn It, Lead It: Blogging and Higher Order Thinking – A framework to engage students in higher order thinking skills through blogging

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Blogging and Higher Order Thinking – A framework to engage students in higher order thinking skills through blogging

I came across a great article recently entitled: “HOT Blogging: A Framework for Blogging to Promote Higher Order Thinking”, which was published in the May 2009 issue of The Reading Teacher. This article gave a great instructional framework for effectively using blogging with students to promote critical thinking skills (what we all want to do!).

Zawilinski does a fine job of providing an easy to follow framework to show how blogging truly can involve critical thinking skills! This startegy is the HOT framework and is used to develop "higher order thinking skills around new literacies.”

The HOT strategy involves the following steps:

Bolster background
Prime the pump
Continue the conversation
Make multiplicity explicit

The article also gave super insights for beginning bloggers, and would be a great resource for teachers who are not sold on the value of blogging.

The purpose of this article is to explore ways in which blogs can support literacy programs, especially to develop higher order thinking (HOT) while reading and writing. First, I will provide an introduction to and a theoretical rationale for blogging. Next, resources and ideas will be shared to help spark possibilities for blogging in an intermediate-grade classroom. Four common types of educational blogs will be presented. Finally, HOT blogging, an instructional framework that uses a blog to develop higher order thinking, will be described. - Zawilinski, Lisa. Reading Teacher, May2009, Vol. 62 Issue 8, p650-661, 12p, 8 charts, 1 diagram; (AN 39232973)

Personally I want to take blogging to the next level in my classroom this upcoming academic year. I plan on using it often, in order to give students a solid platform to connect to a large audience, and to think critically on issues with that audience. Blogging truly provides students with authentic writing experiences. Check out my blog I used to communicate things to parents and students this past year…I think I will be changing it, just a bit. 2008-2009 Mr. A’s Classroom Blog. I am a firm believer in using technology to engage learners and move them into higher order thinking. Blogging can be used to do this!

Blogging for Higher Order Thinking