Abstract

This dissertation research investigates current practices in a cross-section of Canadian university education departments, in order to glean information about pedagogical approaches, subject matter, and classroom methods being utilized to support higher-order cognitive development. Courses for preservice teachers that dealt with subject matter related to higher-order thinking were examined through two qualitative empirical research studies, in order to find out what these students were learning about developing higher-order cognitive skills. Sixteen education instructors and fourteen students were interviewed, fourteen class sessions were observed in four courses, and sixty-seven students were surveyed, to solicit their views on learning and teaching with regard to complex networks of abstract ideas. Perceptions of outcomes, both favourable and unfavourable, were gathered. The results indicate that university education departments have implemented curricula that describe the cognitive elements, critical discursive processes, and learning theories that contribute to the development of higher-order thinking processes. However (according to the evidence described here), relatively little attention was paid to developing the philosophical perspectives, or the critical dispositions, that facilitate the creation and the maintenance of deeply and broadly coherent frameworks of ideas. Three dimensions of higher-order cognitive learning are construed, and six pedagogical objectives are described that instructors can target to support their students' development of widely reflective and dynamic systems of coherent thought