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Development of high-order thinking skills by self-study
Author
Zhou, Wei
Supervisor
Chang, Agnes Shook Cheong
Abstract
If there is one common aim for most university teaching, it is to get students to think, so it is of interest to know whether our education system promotes thinking skills. To this end, a survey was carried out. Most of the students surveyed believe that education in Singapore does not promote creativity and even stamps out creativity in students. Careful analyses show that this negative survey result does not indicate that education in Singapore really stamps out creativity; however, it does indicate problems in the education system. The major problem identified is that the students find their life too stressful. Various sources of academic stress are analyzed and the adverse effects of stress on learning are discussed. It is pointed out clearly that students do not have to pressurized to learn, because human beings are natural learners. Pressure is demotivator of learning and tends to stifle students' curiosity. Learning is the natural ability of human beings, but thinking is not. High-order thinking skills can be and must be acquired by learning. Learning by memorization leads to surface learning, but it should be well recognized that memorization plays an essential role in learning process. The question is what to and how to memorize. While lecturers can improve the students' opportunities to learn by better teaching methods, it is more important to help students develop their learning skills so that they can learn by self-study. The importance of self-study is thoroughly discussed in the report. An effective way to help students learn is to help them build a learning framework. When students become active learners, they will find learning pleasurable and learn actively in their lie-span and develop their high-order thinking skis. Finally, problems associated with lab assessment are studied. The importance of awarding different grades is highlighted, and an objective-based relative-scale assessment method is proposed. This assessment method motivates students to carry out careful observation and to learn to interpret experimental discrepancies; therefore, it helps to develop their high-order thinking skills.
Date Issued
1996
Call Number
LB1060 Zho
Date Submitted
1996