Teachers’ Learning Communities for Developing High Order Thinking Skills—A Case Study of a School Pedagogical Change

This study deals with an elementary school that is undergoing a process of pedagogical change. The teachers understood that their weak point was excessive use of teaching based on memorization rather than developing high-order thinking (HOT) skills. The school therefore established teachers’ learning communities for peer learning and designing learning tasks that encourage the development of HOT skills. Quantitative and qualitative research tools were used in this study as a formative assessment. The data included learning tasks and interviews with teachers. The findings indicate an increase in the expression of critical thinking and the cognitive levels of application, analysis, and synthesis. The national test scores indicate an increase in students’ performance in most subjects. It appears that educators recognize the need for a transition from teaching that emphasize memorizing information to methods that develop students’ thinking skills and independent learning and initiated a successful pedagogical change.