Publications for Teaching Higher-Order Thinking
Latest Publication:
3-D K-12 STEM
by Patrick J. Leighton, EdD
A 240-page book written by and for teachers with decades of experience teaching three-dimensionally: teaching the conceptual understanding that enables students’ critical thinking, content command, and skill fluency. It is a how-to manual for any classroom teacher attempting to implement the 3-D vision of the NGSS. It presents and applies new discoveries, never before published, in the cognitive science of creative, self-directed, question-based problem-solving, critical thinking, and reasoned decision-making - in short, higher-order thinking. This innovative pedagogy, some would call it revolutionary, resulted from over three decades of teacher-led classroom research in twelve schools. It ensured that this fully-fleshed 3-D model is effective with any student in any school taught by any teacher.
Birthed in the practicality of what works in class, this book describes the teacher-designed tool, the Curriculum Library, and the teacher community, the Curriculum Cooperative, that together empower teachers’ pedagogical creativity while reducing the demands on their personal time and psychic energy.
CHAPTER ONE: The Paradigms and Dimensions of Curriculum
3-D ED Teach All Kids to Think (Science) . . . and Nail the Standards
by Patrick J. Leighton, EdD
This final report of 35 years of classroom research chronicles the development of a science of science education. Its core take teachers from theory to practice to professional community. It chronicles the development of a complete guide for implementing a three-dimensional model of curriculum, teaching, and learning focused on teaching K-12 students higher-order thinking (as espoused by the Next Generation Science Standards), content command, and skill fluency.
Extracted from the complete book, these 12 chapters and eight appendices take classroom teachers from theory to practice. After explaining the shape and mechanics of the 3-D curriculum model, dedicated chapters emphasize the practical consequences and opportunities for curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Numerous anecdotes taken from across the grade levels provide insight to how the changes may roll out in a real classroom. (Includes all appendices. Available for download only.
Five of the Core’s chapters are replaced with five others that plumb the depths of cognitive psychology and learning theory to assemble a comprehensive model for teaching and learning higher-order thinking, using science as its example. Readers are challenged to solve the mystery of what technology such a bona fide science would be able to deliver.
The five chapters added to the 3-D Core expand individual classroom practice into community, beginning with a more subtle and complex understanding of the 3-D paradigm as would be useful for mentors helping colleagues. The last two additional chapters describe the Curriculum Library tool and Curriculum Cooperative platform designed to make 3-D teaching and learning more productive and satisfying for both teacher and student.
Classroom Wall Posters.
Concepts are simple, so display them on your classroom walls. Concepts are generic, so point to them over and over, no matter the question. Concepts are eternal - they are safe harbors for your kids’ wandering curiosity, so put the maps on your walls. Before you know it, they won’t need to look.
