“DEVELOPING HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS THROUGH THE TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS OF PHYSICS”

           Hi guys ! Let's talk about Developing higher order thinking skills through the teaching and learning process of physics. It is about problems on realizing higher order thinking skills in physics and the solution proposed by me.

Do you know what is higher order thinking skills  actually? Most of us maybe have been familiar with this words, especially for them who take education as their major. My next question is what is thinking actually? Thinking is a conscious act that requires space and time.  We do a lot more thinking that we perhaps realize, simply in the way that we carry out our everyday life.  Deciding what clothes to wear, and remembering to take our keys with us when we leave the house require conscious thought. Thinking also deals with solving the problems. People assume that thinking is complicated and I agree  with that. But it does not mean that we can not find the shortest way to think. What I mean by shortest way is making the problem simplier and follow the rule of the problems. Physics provides this style of thinking.

Simple thinking skills include things like learning facts and learning how to remember these.  Higher Order Thinking Skills include skills such as creative and critical thinking, analysis, problem solving and visualization.

           As we all do know, our country is currently trying to improve education in terms of teaching and learning in order to produce high quality output. In this case, we require the higher-order thinking skills that addressed to students. As a teachers students, we should be aware that developing higher order thinking skills is a very important thing to note in the world of education. In this case the students attempt to hone their skills through a variety of fields of study they take, one of them is through physics.

What is the idea that physics trying to say to us? Physics is a science of the natural facts and the laws based on observation and arranged in an orderly system. Physics is a creative activity which in many ways resembles the creative activity of the human mind. One important aspect of physics is the observation of events or natural phenomena.

The subjects of physics is one of the subjects in clumps of interest science that can developed inductive and deductive analytical thinking skills in solving problems related to the natural phenomena both qualitatively and quantitatively with mathematics, as well as to increase knowledge, skills, and sense of self-confidence.

However, learning of physics is not considered to foster higher-order thinking skills in most of the students, eventhough physics which requires critical thinking of human mind should have develope thinking order skills actually. This happens because the condition of physical learning in most schools in Indonesia is still not conducive to the implementation of higher-order thinking skills learning effectively.

There are several things that become obstacles in this case. First, education in schools mostly has teacher centers system, communications which established during the learning process is just one-way communication, teachers deliver knowledge and students just receive it, so the students do not have much chances to think critically by themselves. Second, most activities in schools is memorizing while the key to master physics is understanding, not memorizing. The third is the lack of available physical learning media that should be used to make students understand physics concepts directly. And one more problem that we should realize is physics usually presented as fact that have been found by the scientist since many years a go, not be seen as a natural event that should be observed, measured and discussed, however some simple concepts of physics can be found by students actually.

By remembering the importance of thinking skills, as the teachers students, we must find the ways that we can use in teaching and learning for increasing students' thinking skills. In designing the teaching, teachers should try to apply creativity that can produces a range of innovative learning. In this case, a model of learning to guide the teachers in planning and implementing learning and teaching activities is needed.

One model that matches with physical characteristics is Inquiry Training Model. This model is intended to allow students to discover concepts, principles, theories, nature, rules, and laws of physics by themselves through scientific activities. This activity can be done individually or in a group. Thus, students are trained to do: learning by doing, learning by process skills, learning to live together, learning to be good, learning to know, and learning by experiences.

In this learning model, students presented a problem to be solved. And then the students identify problems and propose several ways to experiment, and by  the guidance of teachers, students choose a suitable experiment to solve the problem. The next step is students do the experiments to collect data, and then analyze the data they get through mathematical calculations. After that, students think logicaly, rationaly and objectively, as well as students find the formulate and clarified it with the theory and the facts of nature that exist. Then the students can take the conclusion based on the comparison of their findings and existing theory. After that, students communicate the results of the experiment in the form of reports and articles. Finally, students apply the results of their experiments in daily life, technology, and industry.

I would like to give a simple example application of this learning model. In a case, the students have to find the value of acceleration of grativity. They identify the problem and try to get the relation of the variables. And then they think how to find the value and propose several ways to experiment. By the guidance of teachers, they do experiment by measure mass and weight of some solid things, for example a cube of  iron. After they collect the data, they analyze it through mathematical calculations and finally get value of gravity’s acceleration is 9,8 m/s². And after solve the problem, they compare their result with the theory and then communicate it to the public. By inquiry learning model like this, students can be trained to develope higher order thinking skills.

The innovation is fully implemented some of the main features of the physics, that is inquiry learning and the development of science process skills of students. As the impact of the implementation of inquiry in learning, there will be an increasing in students' thinking patterns, from memorization to think rationally. And even more interesting is students can be interest to develop higher-order thinking such as critical and creative thinking.

In the journey of understanding the physics, it is also worth to develop teachers' views on inquiry. Why ? because teachers is also  important part in the world of education, teachers' duty is guide the students to develope their higher order thinking skills. To inculcate teacher with  the spirit of inquiry that will be directly transmitted to the students, we need to provide experience thinking through open-ended experiments, it can form a critical teacher and creative in problem solving.

So, in developing higher order thinking skills through the teaching and learning process of physics, there are innovation we should made. This innovation are expected to solve the problem that we have and realize what we all need, that is high quality output in education. So, as the next teachers in the future, will we be ready to do this? Yes, we will. We have to be ready ! :D

Jogja, November 2012