There are multiple levels of thinking according to Dr. Benjamin Bloom who created what we know in education as Bloom’s Taxonomy. This taxonomy reflects how thinking progresses as functions become more challenging and demanding. The taxonomy starts with getting and remembering information. That’s considered in the taxonomy as the lowest level of thinking. The taxonomy continues with understanding the information, and moves into applying the information. This is lower level thinking: recall of information, understanding, and application.
Higher order thinking starts with analyzing information. Analysis allows individuals to look at the information from different perspectives, weighting the value of the information as well as the sources, and determine reliability. This is what we know as Critical Thinking (I will go back to it in a moment). The taxonomy continues with evaluating information, providing a basis for how information is valuable and applicable to different situations, and how different variables will change applicability and outcomes. From there the taxonomy moves to creativity. (No surprise there!) Great minds like Albert Einstein and Leonardo Da’Vinci were known for utilizing information in new ways according to specific needs. Higher order thinking comprises analysis, evaluation, and creativity.
Looking around how people treat information, we can be honest and (without need to offend or get offended by it) interpret that many are dealing with lower order thinking skills. We can see how critical thinking is hard to achieve. However, to travel the journey from critical thinking to creative thinking is even more challenging. Sometimes we conform to discuss information and argue about what we think is right from our own perspective without taking in consideration other points of view, and even if we do, and grow our knowledge, we just leave it like that. We do nothing with this new found conglomerate of knowledge and the new sense of comprehension that comes with the discussion. We stop at critical thinking. Those who achieve this level of thinking are considered smart. However, those who reach the creative level are considered genius!
Allow me to suggest a vehicle that may serve us to get there: Inquiry! Inquiry is the art of asking purposeful, direct, and useful questions with the intention to find possible solutions to complex issues. The more and better questions we ask, the better prepare we can be to consider a vast number of variables and possibilities, effects and challenges, for the promotion of new and creative ways to approach different issues. Our questions allow us to build a bridge between the current scenario and a preferred scenario. It requires some creativity just to develop an idea of how things would look like, or what we would like to see if the problem we are analyzing was solved. Nevertheless, to imagine functional and effective solutions require a higher level of creativity.
The thing with information and knowledge is this: knowledge that produces no change is just information. When all a question is requiring is information, we can all take a break from sending smiley faces to our friends, and we can Google it! It is very probable that thousands of people already asked that same question. If we can remember it, and understand it, and use it, we covered the lowest hierarchy of thinking. It is often that simple. The higher order thinking requires a little more effort, but the rewards are of immeasurable value.