Teaching
Strategies that
Enhance (HOTS)
Higher Order
Thinking Skills
Help Determine What Higher-
Order Thinking Is
Help students understand what
higher-order thinking is. Explain to
them what it is and why they need it.
Help them understand their own
strengths and challenges.
Connect Concepts
Lead students through the process of how to
connect one concept to another. By doing this
you are teaching them to connect what they
already know with what they are learning.
This level of thinking will help students learn
to make connections whenever it is possible,
which will help them gain even more
understanding.
Teach Students to
Infer
Teach students to make
inferences by giving them “real-
world” examples.
Encourage
Questioning
Encourage students to ask
questions, and if for some
reason you can’t get to their
question during class time,
show them how they can
answer it themselves or have
them save the question until the
Use Graphic
Organizers
Graphic organizers provide students
with a nice way to frame their
thoughts in an organized manner. By
drawing diagrams or mind maps,
students are able to better connect
concepts and see their relationships.
This will help students develop a habit
Encourage Creative
Thinking
Creative thinking is when students
invent, imagine, and design what they
are thinking. Using creative senses
helps students process and understand
information better. Research shows
that when students utilize creative
higher-order thinking skills, it indeed
increases their understanding.
Use Mind Movies
When concepts that are being
learned are difficult, encourage
students to create a movie in their
mind. Teach them to close their eyes
and picture it like a movie playing.
This way of higher-order thinking
will truly help them understand in a
powerful, unique way.
Clarify the difference between
understanding and memorizing
When a student is studying, teachers
should make sure that he is not just
memorizing, but rather attempting to
understand the conceptual content of
the subject matter. Teachers can
encourage the students to talk about
concepts in his own words.
Methods
Matter
To develop problem-solving strategies,
teachers should give credit to students for
using a step-wise method of accomplishing
a task in addition to arriving at the correct
answer. Teachers should also teach
students different methods for solving a
problem and encourage students to
consider alternative problem-solving
methods if a particular strategy proves
Teach QARs
Question-Answer-Relationships, or
QARs, teach students to label the type
of question that is being asked and
then use that information to help them
formulate an answer. Students must
decipher if the answer can be found in
a text or online or if they must rely on
their own prior knowledge to answer
This strategy has been found to be
effective for higher-order thinking
because students become more
aware of the relationship between
the information in a text and their
prior knowledge, which helps them
decipher which strategy to use when
they need to seek an answer.
Teacher Ashley B. Guinoo
