ACADEMIA Letters Fostering Higher Thinking among Students through Human-Values Pritam Grover, University of Delhi Introduction Human-values are inner “Beliefs, Concerns, Disposition and Norms” which a person has, as for example, honesty, truth, respect, trust, empathy, gratitude, etc. These are conditioned by one’s culture and guided by conscience, according to which human being is supposed to live & conduct himself [1, 2]. Values develop in human beings during bringing and growing up, by personal experiences, observational learning, and environmental influences. They are abstract, overly complex, and dynamic in nature. However, their base is cognitive [3] 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 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 thinking abilities. Exploring and imbibing human-values can help to enhance and foster higherlevel 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 emphaAcademia Letters, November 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Pritam Grover, drpsgrover@gmail.com Citation: Grover, P. (2021). Fostering Higher Thinking among Students through Human-Values. Academia Letters, Article 4007. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4007. 1 sis 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 [9] and ensure inculcating higher thinking among learners. Outcome-based Education and Value System Outcome-based Education is student-centric educational pedagogy, wherein teaching/ learning/improvement of the student is the focus, and all educational processes and practices are developed around this. Bloom taxonomy [8] 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 [8.9]. 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 incorporate 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 affective and cognitive domain in planning and teaching courses, delivering lectures, seminars and assessing student learning, especially in Laboratory and Project-based courses, by defining the learning outcomes appropriately. Teaching and learning, wherein affective domain elements are emphasized, is to assist students in internalizing human-values, professional and human-centred characteristics. Affective domain learning need be expressed in the form of Learning Outcomes using Bloom Action verbs. Academia Letters, November 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Pritam Grover, drpsgrover@gmail.com Citation: Grover, P. (2021). Fostering Higher Thinking among Students through Human-Values. Academia Letters, Article 4007. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4007. 2 Values-oriented Learning Outcomes (VLO) 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 outcomes 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, designed using Bloom-verbs (italicized in the text) of affective 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 issues, 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 inferences, using ethical principles and precepts of Human-values, leading to overall harmony, and establishing culture of Trust and Tolerance. VLO3: Collaborative & Social Work Function effectively 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, environmental, technological and natural contexts, show familiarity and be responsive to sustainable change by adhering to Values and social norms. VLO5: Exploration and Communication Academia Letters, November 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Pritam Grover, drpsgrover@gmail.com Citation: Grover, P. (2021). Fostering Higher Thinking among Students through Human-Values. Academia Letters, Article 4007. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4007. 3 Explore and communicate effectively complex relevant issues related to real lifeaspects, 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 areintended course learning outcomes which encapsulate both the cognitive and affective components. We want students to learn and demonstrate these when the course/program is completed. Syllabus, other curricular activities, teaching/learning /assessment strategies can be designed accordingly. Effective 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 Outcomes, 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 [10] and Socrates Questioning Method [11] may be deployed to explore cognitive aspects of human-values and develop higher thinking skills [12]. Socratic questioning/reasoning technique allows to investigate and study complex ideas, analysing concepts 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. Laboratory experiments can be designed to implement this approach via mind-mapping Software Tools [13,14]. Academia Letters, November 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Pritam Grover, drpsgrover@gmail.com Citation: Grover, P. (2021). Fostering Higher Thinking among Students through Human-Values. Academia Letters, Article 4007. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4007. 4 References [1] OECD Report: Attitudes and Values for 2030: www.oecd.org/education/2030-project [2] Shalom H. Schwartz: An Overview of the Schwartz Theory of Basic Values - https:// www.researchgate.net/publication/271231569 [3] PWC Consulting: Human Value in the Digital Age, December 2017; www.pwc.nl [4] Anastasia Lijadi: What are universally accepted human values that define ‘a Good life…..’? Intr. Institute of App. Systems Analysis - August 2019 [5] The Moral Brain: The Neuronal Basis for Ethics and Human Values - August, 2020: https:/ /exploringyourmind.com/the-moral-brain-the-neuronal-basis-for-ethics-and-human-values/ [6] Roland Zahn et.al: The Neural Basis of Human Social Values: Evidence from Functional MRI: Cerebral Cortex, Volume 19, Issue 2, February 2009, Pages 276–283, https://doi. org/10.1093/cercor/bhn080 [7] Teaching Values of Being Human: A Curriculum that Links Education, the Mind and the Heart: Mark Le Messurier: March 2020 - https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781003028048/ chapters/10.4324/9781003028048-9 [8] Anderson, L. W. and Krathwohl, D. R., et al (2000) A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Allyn & Bacon. Boston (Pearson Education Group) [9] R. Killen, Outcomes-based Education: Principles and possibilities. 2006. http://www. acel.org.au/affiliates/nsw/conference01/ts_1.html. & References therein. [10] Mind Mapping: https://www.mindmapping.com [11] Socratic Method Research Portal: www.socraticmethod.net [12] Roxanne M. O’Connell: Mind Mapping for Critical Thinking (IGI Global, Roger Williams University, USA, 2014) [13] Mind mapping software: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concept-and_mind-mapping_software [14] Swestyani S. et. el: An analysis of logical thinking using Mind Mapping: J. of Physics: Confr. Series, Vol 22, 16 September 2017, 11 Academia Letters, November 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Pritam Grover, drpsgrover@gmail.com Citation: Grover, P. (2021). Fostering Higher Thinking among Students through Human-Values. Academia Letters, Article 4007. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4007. 5