Higher thinking through human values

ENCOURAGING HIGHER THINKING AMONG STUDENTS THROUGH HUMAN-VALUES

 INTRODUCTION

 What is human value? It is “Beliefs, Concerns, Attitude, Perception, Temperament and Norms” which a person has, as for example, honesty, truth, respect, trust, empathy, gratitude, etc. These are inured by one’s culture and guided by conscience, according to which human being is supposed to live & conduct himself.  Values develop in human beings from day one by family atmosphere, social interaction, and self-interpretation, . during bringing and growing up, by   experiences, observational learning, and environmental influences. They are abstract , overly complex, and dynamic in nature. However, their base is cognitive and related to mental abilities of human beings. Values affect our thinking, brain, mental performance and have strong links with higher-order cognitive abilities, such as analysis, problem solving, creativity and critical thinking. Understanding and practicing human values can help to improve  enhance higher-order thinking skills.

There is massive requirement to focus continuously on teaching human-values to learners

at all stages of life, as imbibing and practicing value system among humans is a slow process

and requires constant effort. It has been observed that students are averse to attend classes

or lectures on Human-values, as they do not perceive any ‘utility’ of such lectures. This is

because they are unaware about the strong links between human-values and higher think-

ing abilities. Exploring and imbibing human-values can help to enhance and foster higher-

level thinking among learners, thus motivating them to take interest in learning and practicing

human-values. Traditional education system is highly cognitive-oriented, and there is hardly any

emphasis   on developing higher skills or Values. Teaching and practicing Values leads to increased

mental activity, human sensitivity, concerns and knowledge. It is feasible to integrate teaching/learning of human-values in the educational system itself via Outcome-based Education

Framework  and ensure inculcating higher thinking among learners.

Outcome-based Education and Value System

Outcome-based Education is student-centric educational pedagogy, wherein teaching/ learning

i/improvement of the student is the focus, and all educational processes and practices are

developed around this. Bloom taxonomy  form the basis of outcome-based education approach. According to Bloom taxonomy, human thinking and learning may be divided into three domains: Cognitive, Affective and Psychomotor .

Cognitive-domain learning is the traditional focus of most teaching/learning processes.

Affective domain learning has not received much attention in our curricula. Cognitive,  

knowledge is pre-requirement for learning affective and psychomotor skills. It is possible to incor-

porate both cognitive and affective domain learnings by defining the Learning Outcomes of a

course.

Cognitive and Affective Domains

Cognitive domain concerns with the mental processes. Emphasis is on mental activities, such

as understanding, analysis, evaluation, and synthesis, mainly from the knowledge acquisition,

application, and generation perspective.

Affective domain concerns Human-values and involves exploring, understanding, analysing,

judging, justifying, synthesizing, adopting and internalizing values. All this involve a variety

of mental processes and reasoning abilities, indicating strong association among affective and

cognitive processes.

Teachers can educate students, by incorporating both afective and cognitive domain in

planning and teaching courses, delivering lectures, seminars and assessing student learning,

especially in Laboratory and Project-based courses, by defning the learning outcomes appro-

priately.

Values-oriented Learning Outcomes (VLO)

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Deeper understanding of human-values system requires in-depth exploration, interpretation,

assessment, and evaluation (cognitive skills) of several aspects, concerning beliefs, habits,

behaviour, attitude, culture, societal environments, natural habitat, and so on. Learning out-

comes can be designed to focus on these aspects and mental skills of learners.

Clear understanding and implementation of intended learning outcomes facilitates the

structure and preparation of curriculum and proper assessments to measure achievement, and

to plan the learning process for individual students. Some suggested learning outcomes, de-

signed using Bloom-verbs (italicized in the text) of afective and cognitive domains, may be

as follows.

On completing the course on Human-values, the student will be able to learn, imbibe and

demonstrate their responses and learnings as regards:

VLO1: Critical Analysis and Evaluation

Develop capacity to think critically and creatively, including an ability to identify

and articulate beliefs, concerns, attitudes, and complex multi-cultural societal is-

sues, apply reasoning and critical analysis to arrive at logical understandings.

VLO2: Problem Solving and Decision making

Judge and analyse complex life-situations and problems reaching mature infer-

ences, using ethical principles and precepts of Human-values, leading to overall

harmony, and establishing culture of Trust and Tolerance.

VLO3: Collaborative & Social Work

Function efectively as an individual, and as a caring member or leader in diverse

societal teams, and in multi-cultural settings to serve the cause of peace and help

creating harmony among all people.

VLO4: Environment and Sustainability

Understand the practice and impact of the Human-values in societal, environ-

mental, technological and natural contexts, show familiarity and be responsive to

sustainable change by adhering to Values and social norms.

VLO5: Exploration and Communication

Explore and communicate effectively complex relevant issues related to real life-

aspects, with the family, community, society, and world at large, and propose

solutions to serve the cause of universal well-being that promote peace.

VLO6: Life-long learning and Ethics

Know the need for and have the preparation and ability to engage in life-long

learning and develop philosophy to always act ethically and justly.

VLO1 - VLO6 are intended course learning outcomes which encapsulate both

the cognitive and affective components. We want students to learn and demon-

strate these when the course/program is completed. Syllabus, other curricular

activities, teaching/learning /assessment strategies can be designed accordingly.

Efective implementation of these can also help to ignite/foster higher thinking

skills [VLO1 & VLO2].

Human-Values course may be included in various educational programs at different levels.

Outcome-based education framework mandates defining the Intended Program Learning Out-

comes, which are realized with the help of corresponding course outcomes. Course outcomes

are mapped to program outcomes, thus, integrating human-values in the complete program,

which the students undergo.

Teaching and Exploring Human-values

Mind-mapping Technique  and Socrates Questioning Method may be deployed to

explore cognitive aspects of human-values and develop higher thinking skills . Socratic

questioning/reasoning technique allows to investigate and study complex ideas, analysing con-

cepts and assumptions, distinguishing what we know from what we don’t know, and so on.

Students learn to understand abstract thoughts, analyse and evaluate them and discover links

among facts. These are kind of skills which enhance higher level thinking - decision making,

problem solving, creative and critical thinking.

Adopting Socratic Reasoning method, along with Mind Mapping Technique, can help

to explore and teach human-values and ignite higher thinking among students.