From Fundamentals to “What If?” - A Classroom Experiment in Developing Higher-Order Thinking

 You cannot ask students to think differently before giving them something to think with.

This may sound obvious, but I have often seen discussions about creativity and Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) move too quickly towards the exciting part - problem-solving, innovation, creativity and independent thinking—while overlooking the foundation on which all of these depend.

Students need knowledge. They need concepts. They need vocabulary. They need to understand the fundamentals.

Only then can we reasonably ask them to analyse, question, challenge, modify or create. I discovered this quite clearly through my own teaching.

From fundamentals to thinking

One example that stays with me comes from teaching Banker's Algorithm, a topic from Operating Systems in my undergraduate Computer Science classes.

For someone who has never encountered it, Banker's Algorithm is essentially a method for determining whether a computer system can safely allocate limited resources to different processes without entering a state where everything gets stuck.

It is not an immediately intuitive topic. Students first have to understand processes, process behaviour, CPU scheduling, resources, allocation, available resources, resource requests and the idea of a safe state.

So my starting point was never:

“Here is the algorithm. Now solve this problem.”

First came the fundamentals.

• What is a process and what makes a process different from a program?
• What is a resource?
• What does allocation mean?
• What happens when several processes compete for limited number of resources?
• What does it mean for a system to be in a safe state?

The objective at this stage was quite simple:

Build understanding before demanding higher-order thinking.

Once the foundation was reasonably secure, the nature of the questions could change.

Then came the “What if?”

Instead of stopping once students could successfully execute the algorithm, I would begin introducing variations.

• What if another process suddenly requested additional resources?
• What if the number of available resources changed?
• What if a process released some of its resources earlier than expected?
• What if the system entered an unsafe state?
• What if we changed the order in which processes were considered?
• What would happen?
• Could the system recover?
• Would the same allocation still be safe? ... and so on
  

Now the students were doing something different. They were no longer simply following a procedure.

They were using what they had learned to reason about situations that were not exactly the same as the examples they had already seen.

And something else happened in the classroom too.

The dynamics changed.

Believe me or not, the moment I started asking these “What if?” questions, I could actually see and feel a change in the room. 

During the fundamentals stage, participation was almost 100 percent. Students would promptly answer my questions. They were comfortable explaining what they had understood. They were often quite happy to share their interpretation of the subject with their classmates, even dropping a few "Whys" and "Hows" here and there.

They were operating within a familiar territory:

“I know this. I understand this. I can answer this.”

But the moment the questions changed to:

“What if…?”

the atmosphere became noticeably different.

There was hesitation. Students became more cautious about speaking.

And this was particularly interesting because these were mature learners. Many were perfectly capable students who had no problem participating when they knew the answer.

Now they were being asked to move beyond static knowledge and explore a number of possible situations - situations where there might not be one immediately obvious answer.

I could almost see the internal question:

“What if I am wrong?”

And there was another dimension to it. 

Among mature students, giving an incorrect answer publicly can sometimes carry a social cost. There can be a fear of embarrassment or a perceived loss of face in front of classmates.

They knew they were being pushed outside their comfort zone. They were no longer simply demonstrating what they knew. They were being asked to think aloud about what could be.

That is a very different psychological experience.

What had years of traditional education taught them?

This experience made me wonder whether the hesitation was entirely about the complexity of the question. 

Perhaps it wasn't.

Perhaps years of conventional, knowledge-oriented education had already shaped their expectations about what happens inside a classroom.

• The teacher teaches. 
• The students take class notes.
• The teacher asks.
• The student answers.
• The answer is either right or wrong.

Over time, students can become very good at understanding what the educational system expects from them.

• Learn the material.
• Remember it.
• Reproduce it.
• Get the answer right.
• Avoid getting it wrong.

And eventually, perhaps without anybody explicitly teaching them this lesson, they begin to associate being a good student with being correct.

Then suddenly the teacher asks:

“What do you think might happen if we changed this?”

There is no longer a comfortable answer sitting inside the textbook.

The student has to speculate, explore, take an intellectual risk and possibly be wrong.

That is where the transition from knowledge to higher-order thinking can become uncomfortable.

Creativity cannot simply be switched on

This experience also taught me something else.

You cannot simply bring creativity into a classroom one fine morning.

You cannot spend years rewarding students for producing the expected answer and then suddenly announce:

“From today, I want everyone to think creatively.”

It doesn't quite work that way.

Creative thinking requires a certain level of psychological safety. Students need to become comfortable with uncertainty.

They need to discover that an imperfect answer does not automatically make them a poor student.

They need opportunities to explore possibilities before they are expected to produce original solutions.

And perhaps most importantly, they need to experience the classroom as a place where thinking is valued, not just correctness.

That is a process.

The earlier it begins, the more naturally it can become part of a learner's way of thinking.

A child who has been encouraged from the early years to ask “Why?”, “What else?”, “What would happen if…?” and “Can we do this differently?” may find the transition into higher-order thinking much less threatening than an adult learner who has spent fifteen years being rewarded primarily for reproducing correct answers.

This does not mean abandoning fundamentals.

Quite the opposite.

It means building a progression:

Fundamentals → Application → Analysis → Evaluation → What-if? → Exploration → Creative thinking

The foundation remains important but the learner gradually develops the confidence to move beyond it.

And this is where I return to the same Banker's Algorithm problem we were working with. 

The fundamentals were now in place, the students had practised the logic, and we could finally move beyond “How does it work?” to the more interesting question: “What else could we do with it?”

From HOTS to creative thinking

The next step was even more interesting.

Once students understood the underlying logic, I could ask questions that didn't necessarily have one immediate, predetermined path.

For example:

If you were designing a resource-allocation system yourself, would you necessarily use this approach? Why?

That question changed the classroom dynamic.

The students were no longer being asked to prove that they remembered the teacher's explanation.

• They had to examine the situation critically.
• They had to think about alternatives.
• They had to consider limitations of the existing algorithm.
• They had to justify a position.

And perhaps most importantly, they discovered that knowing an established solution does not mean they are forbidden from questioning it.

That, for me, is where creative thinking begins.

Not necessarily with inventing something revolutionary.

Sometimes it begins with a simple:

“What if we did it differently?”

 

But the fundamentals still matter

There is an important point here.

I would strongly resist the idea that we should reduce foundational teaching because we now want students to develop HOTS and creativity.

A student cannot meaningfully question something they don't understand. They cannot evaluate alternatives without some knowledge of the alternatives. They cannot develop a useful new solution without understanding the problem they are trying to solve.

Creativity does not eliminate knowledge. It uses knowledge differently.

This is why I see the classroom journey not as:

Fundamentals OR HOTS OR Creativity

but rather:

Fundamentals → Application → Analysis → Evaluation → “What if?” → Creative exploration

These are not competing educational philosophies. They can be stages of the same learning experience.

And the teacher's role changes along the way

At the beginning, the teacher may need to be quite explicit.

• Explain.
• Demonstrate.
• Clarify.
• Correct misconceptions.
• Provide examples.

But gradually, the teacher should be able to step back.

The questions become more important than the explanations.

Instead of always telling students what to think, we begin asking:

• Why?
• What evidence supports that?
• What else could happen?
• What would change if we altered this condition?
• Can you think of another way?
• What are the consequences of your approach?

And eventually:

What do you think?

That final question can be surprisingly powerful.

It tells the learner that their job is no longer simply to reproduce the teacher's thinking.

They are being invited to develop their own.

There is one more lesson I took from this

Not every “What if?” needs to produce a better answer.

Sometimes a student explores an alternative and discovers that it doesn't work.

Sometimes they eventually return to the original approach.

And that is perfectly fine.

In fact, I think this is an important part of responsible creativity.

A student might say:

“I explored another way, and I now understand why the existing way works better.”

That is not a failure of creativity. In fact, in creativity there's no failure.

It is evidence of creative thinking combined with judgement.

We should be careful not to teach children that being different is automatically better.

The goal is not:

“Always find another answer.”

The goal is:

“Be capable of finding another possibility and be capable of deciding whether it is actually better.”

What I would call a balanced classroom

Looking back, I would describe this approach as a balance between three things:

Knowledge: 

Give students something solid to build on.

Thinking

Ask them to apply, analyse, evaluate and reason with what they know.

Exploration

Give them permission to ask “What if?”, test possibilities and sometimes discover that their alternative does not work.

Perhaps this is what a creative education should look like.

• Not a classroom where the teacher stops teaching fundamentals because creativity is important.
• Not a classroom where every student is forced to produce something “innovative.”
• And certainly not a classroom where creativity becomes another score on a report card.

Rather, a classroom where knowledge becomes the foundation for thinking, thinking becomes the foundation for exploration, and exploration becomes an opportunity for creativity.

I have found that students can move surprisingly far when we give them that opportunity.

Sometimes the most valuable moment in a lesson is not when a student gets the answer right.

It is when they pause and ask:

“But what would happen if…?”

Perhaps that is a small question.

But in education, it can be the beginning of a very big change.

What do you think? 👇

I'd be interested to hear from teachers, educators, lecturers, academic leaders and other education professionals who have experience with these issues. If you have a different perspective, a classroom experience, or an approach that has worked for you, please feel free to share it in the comments.

Thoughtful disagreement is welcome too. The aim is to learn from one another and keep the conversation going. Thank you!