Susan M. Brookhart

While this author uses lots of jargon to define higher-order thinking, I think that she is trying to help us all understand how to recognize when a student has an aha moment in order frame it when creating various kinds of assessments. She covers the usual what, where, who, why, and how questions but also has a framework and chapters that cover various levels of deep understanding and thinking. As the teacher librarian and classroom teacher plan assessments for their co-taught learning experiences, this is one factor to consider: the depth of understanding. But there are other factors including creative thinking, performance, the ability to work as teams as well as an individual and other indicators of knowing and doing. A book like this has some value as an idea book but just one aspect of assessment, not a comprehensive look. We recommend Essential Questions by Jay McTigue as a more important book on the topic, but since this book comes with a professional membership in ASCD and so is probably easily available, it might stimulate a conversation. And, that is the most important thing. Also, what happens when the students themselves start to learn how to assess their own thinking rather than having to rely on the teacher for doing this for them and to them? A somewhat useful guide.… (más)

One of the amazing statements in this book is that if teachers are asked if they test for higher-order thinking, the usually reply in the affirmative, but when asked to supply actual test questions, they usually are testing recall. For teacher librarians who help kids find information and then begin to use it, do we have any measuring sticks to know if kids are using the information they find to think? What measure do you use? When do you use them? After teaching kids to find authoritative information, do they go on to develop good arguments and draw sound conclusions? All too often, one suspects, students are guided to information but then sent back with some sources to the classroom and what happens to that information is never apparent to the teacher librarian. Brookhart’s book should be required reading by every teacher librarian who wants to move toward the center of teaching and learning. And, upon a careful study, the book needs to be shared with a collaborating classroom teacher as a guide to build sound formative and summative assessment strategies. After a brief introduction to what higher-order thinking is, Brookhart teaches us how to assess the following dispositions: assessment of analysis, evaluation, and creation; assessment of logic and reasoning; assessment of judgment; assessment of problem solving; and, assessment of creativity and creative thinking. Any teacher librarian who understands these strategies will approach the teaching of 21st century skills quite differently than if they persist in just front-loaded inquiry of asking questions, finding information, and taking notes. Perhaps we should make a large poster to hang above our table where classroom teachers and we are planning. We can, as we discuss assessment, look up and ask which of the many skills could we assess that make sense in the unit we are planning. And, if we did not have a clue, then delve into a nearby copy of Brookhart for some ideas. This is a very very important book and topic; not one to purchase and then have it sit on a shelf.… (más)