A Discipline-Independent Approach to a Higher Cognitive Pedagogy

We present a content-independent formulation of higher cognitive pedagogy, by identifying higher cognitive pedagogy with executive function which in turn we equate with continual multi-dimensional processing of drivers of outcomes. The key focus in this definition is on multiple dimensions. We apply our definition to four diverse disciplines: a) mathematical modeling of verbal problems is presented as an interaction between the dimensions of language and algebra; b) complex mathematical problems are presented as an interaction between multiple subproblems participating in one solution; c) essay writing is presented as an interaction between specific atomic competency skills – creating meaningful sentence pairs – and hierarchical organization into greater wholes such as paragraphs and essays; d) foreign language translation is presented as a dimensional parsing of hypernyms and hyponyms; similarly, literary translation is presented as a dynamic interaction between multiple dimensions of a literary work. We show consistency and correlation between the executive-function pedagogical approach and the Bloom-Anderson approach.