Good Sensory Learning Blog — inferences

Implied meaning can be a tricky concept to master when students move from concrete to abstract ways of thinking.  However, learning implied meaning does not have to be difficult.  In fact, teaching inference skills can be joyful and memorable!  What is an Inference? Inferences are a common literary device that requires the reader or listener to imply meaning from evidence or known facts. It is a higher-order thinking skill that enables conclusions to be drawn or implied from hidden messages.   When Do Students First Come Across Inferential Thinking? Children passively learn about or make inferential leaps when they draw conclusions from the world around them.  For...

Higher order thinking or higher-order thinking skills (HOTS), is based on the theory that some more advanced forms of learning require advanced or complex cognitive processing. Bloom's taxonomy, for instance, suggests the HOTS levels include analysis (breaking apart and organizing information), evaluation (examining the outcome), and synthesis (pulling information together).  The teaching of these skills demands different and more advanced instructional methods than concrete levels of learning such as rote memorization and repetition. How Can We Teach Higher Order Thinking Skills? Instead of parroting facts back to a teacher, HOTS asks students to: understand concepts making sense of implied meanings from lessons or content cues...