Meaningful Scientific Tasks Involving High-Order Thinking Skills

The North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (n.d.) discusses student tasks that have been outlined by Project 2061, a long-range effort to help American students achieve scientific literacy:

"The guidelines from Project 2061 are directed at outcomes such as 'understanding,' 'forming perspectives,' 'thinking critically.' These higher order thinking processes are the means by which content is acquired, used, and infused with meaning.

The guidelines also articulate key principles and concepts, such as 'evolution' and 'energy transformation,' that students should be able to use to develop scientific views of the world. These core concepts enable students to think meaningfully about issues and problems in science.

In addition, Project 2061 insists that scientific habits of mind cannot be established unless students engage in the real-life task of posing a question, designing an experiment to address the question, and synthesizing the information gathered to develop a defensible answer.

Finally, the Project 2061 report, Science for All Americans, suggests that students see the scientific endeavor as a fundamental human impulse to explore the environment. Hence, educators should build on the experiences that students bring to class; help them articulate what conceptions they already have of the natural world; and provide them with real-life, structured experiences where students can rethink or even restructure their conceptions in the face of new evidence and new explanatory ideas."

References