Teachers’ Beliefs About Low Achieving Students and Higher Order Thinking

Abstract

These three excerpts express the belief that instruction of higher order thinking is not equally appropriate for all students. The goal of teaching thinking is seen as appropriate for high-achieving students. Low-achieving students however, who have trouble with mastering even basic facts and skills, are unable to deal with tasks that require thinking.

“Some kids simply can’t do it ....You cannot ignore the variability among children”.

“...I also think that it’s [i.e., higher order thinking] inappropriate for weak students. I would very much like it to be for the weak students, but I have a feeling it will work well only with the strong ones.... You can trust them, they are interested and curious. The weaker ones, we have to give them a lot of support and carry them on our shoulder in order to get some results...”

“I had a beautiful lesson with students who did just that. I enjoyed them a lot. They drew conclusions and planned the experiment and made hypotheses, practically all by themselves. But this is a very strong class with excellent students. I don’t think it can work with all students”.