Higher Order Thinking Enhanced By TM® program
Mohan Gurubatham, Maharishi International University Adjunct Professor, has received international acclaim for his higher order thinking model, which he calls an “active higher order thinking learning model enhanced by Transcendental Meditation for the far transfer of knowledge and skills.”
Higher Order ThinkingHigher order thinking with far transfer is the ability for a student to make sense of and use academic information outside of the classroom. Lower order thinking, on the other hand, is the merely the ability to recall facts. Educators have traditionally found that higher order thinking and its far transfer is difficult to teach because it is not a concept but rather a skillset that a student must cultivate. However, Mohan’s model has shown that the Transcendental Meditation® program (TM) greatly expands a person’s conscious thinking capacity and “facilitates knowledge transfer such as gleaning and applying deep business insights from one area to another.”
During the TM® program, mental chatter quiets until the mind arrives at the source of thought. Experiencing this process allows for deeper and more coherent thinking later, on the surface level of life. “The deeper the thinking, the higher the thought process” Mohan explains. Higher order thinking transforms data into information, knowledge, abstract concepts, and finally wisdom. Such thinking is fluid and flexible, while, according to Mohan, “lower order thought merely tends to be bounded in more concrete patterns (recalling facts, figures and procedures)… Its transfer of application is locked, limited and narrow.”
In today’s business world, it is essential for employees to be able to fluidly apply higher order thinking skills. Examples include adapting business process reengineering to diverse organizations, analyzing related patterns in diverse trends, creating sustainable market plans for diverse stakeholders, and creative conflict resolution.
“Higher order thinking is the major driver of the knowledge economy in the 21st century,” Mohan says. “It commands a premium in value addition over raw materials and manufacturing. Governments have mandated higher order thinking for economic transformation and sustainability.” Examples include Connecticut’s Higher Order Thinking School Program, which centers around experiential, arts-integrated teaching, and Project Zero at Harvard — an investigation into the essential aspects of human learning. However well intentioned these programs are, Mohan has found that none of the approaches unfreeze “stuck conceptual thinking” as effectively as TM does.
Click the links below to explore more of Professor Gurubatham’s peer reviewed ideas.