Anchorage School District Tip #64: Bloom’s Taxonomy Bloom’s Taxonomy. Higher order thinking skills. Levels of questions. No matter what it’s called, the goal is the same – rigorous thinking. How to we get beyond a literal level of discussion that most of our students are satisfied with? One way is to make sure that students understand the various levels of thinking. "Benjamin Bloom (1956) developed a classification of levels of intellectual behavior in learning. This taxonomy contained three overlapping domains: the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. Within the cognitive domain, he identified six levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. These domains and levels are still useful today as you develop the critical thinking skills of your students." The above historical blurb is from http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic69.htm, and serves as a reminder of how we can improve critical thinking skills in our own classrooms. The link below offers a color-coded chart listing the increasing sophistication of thinking skills, provides a list of verbs to help construct activities at each level, and describes a differentiated lesson plan for writing compound sentences. It is a great overview if you need to brush up on Bloom's Taxonomy. http://cs1.mcm.edu/~awyatt/csc3315/bl oom.htmVocabulary Booklet Let's start with a graphic organizer. I told you that I had many uses for the vocabulary booklet in last week's email tip. Have students create a 6-flap vocabulary booklet in order to organize the information about Bloom's Taxonomy. Label each flap with a level of thinking in this order: recalling information understanding information applying information analyzing information synthesizing information evaluating information Now use the Write Source 2000handbook to introduce students to each level of thinking. Use pp. 283-2 90. Show your students how knowing these levels of thinking can help them on classroom assignments and assessments. The mini- unit uses the theme of the California gold rush to model how different levels of thinking are used. In each case, a thorough student writing model is provided. The first exercise shows a fill- in-the-blank worksheet (recalling information) and gets increasingly more Literacy Tips Tips for middle school educators on various topics such as grammar, writing, reading, spelling, vocabulary, cooperative learning and more.Contact: Amy Goodman Middle School Literacy Support 907-267-0221 [email protected]www.asdk12.org/MiddleLink/LA/
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Bloom’s Taxonomy. Higher orderthinking skills. Levels of questions. Nomatter what it’s called, the goal is the same – rigorous thinking. How to we get
beyond a literal level of discussion thatmost of our students are satisfied with?One way is to make sure that studentsunderstand the various levels of thinking.
"Benjamin Bloom (1956) developed aclassification of levels of intellectualbehavior in learning. This taxonomycontained three overlapping domains: thecognitive, psychomotor, and affective. Within the cognitive domain, he identifiedsix levels: knowledge, comprehension,application, analysis, synthesis, andevaluation. These domains and levels arestill useful today as you develop thecritical thinking skills of your students."
The above historical blurb is fromhttp://eduscapes.com/tap/topic69.htm,and serves as a reminder of how we canimprove critical thinking skills in our ownclassrooms.
The link below offers a color-coded chartlisting the increasing sophistication ofthinking skills, provides a list of verbs tohelp construct activities at each level, anddescribes a differentiated lesson plan for writing compound sentences. It is a greatoverview if you need to brush up onBloom's Taxonomy.
http://cs1.mcm.edu/~awyatt/csc3315/bloom.htm
Vocabulary Booklet
Let's start with a graphic organizer. I toldyou that I had many uses for the vocabulary booklet in last week's email tip.Have students create a 6-flap vocabularybooklet in order to organize theinformation about Bloom's Taxonomy.Label each flap with a level of thinking inthis order:
recalling informationunderstanding informationapplying informationanalyzing informationsynthesizing informationevaluating information
Now use the Write Source 2000 handbookto introduce students to each level ofthinking. Use pp. 283-290. Show yourstudents how knowing these levels ofthinking can help them on classroom
assignments and assessments. The mini-unit uses the theme of the California goldrush to model how different levels ofthinking are used. In each case, athorough student writing model isprovided. The first exercise shows a fill-in-the-blank worksheet (recallinginformation) and gets increasingly more
Literacy TipsTips for middle school educators on
various topics such as grammar,writing, reading, spelling, vocabulary,
cooperative learning and more. Contact: Amy GoodmanMiddle School Literacy Support
difficult until students are asked toevaluate information in the form of anopen-ended paragraph.
Hooked on Thinking
“Hooked on Thinking” was just publishedin the April, 2004 issue of The Reading
Teacher . Ann Paziotopoulos and MarianneKroll write about how to make Bloom’s Taxonomy more applicable to literaturediscussions. In this article, the authorsrefer to one of my favorite quotes byOliver Wendell Holmes. He uses ametaphor comparing the intellect ofpeople to multi-level homes. I have
created a blackline master for you to usein the classroom that shows thiscomparison visually. Holmes says, “Thebest illumination comes from above,through the skylight.”
Skyscraper Thinking
Pazziotopoulos and Kroll created theirown classroom analogy using a skyscraper with its feature of ascending floors. “The
floors symbolize the effort needed toreach the next level. The graphic alsoconveys an enhanced view or broadenedperspective from the top floor…” Usethe Skyscraper Thinking sheet as a way tomodel higher level questioning with yourstudents. When discussing Little Red
Riding Hood , ask the students to recall thefacts. What did the wolf do to trick LittleRed Riding Hood? For the evaluationlevel, ask students to pretend they are the
wolf and write a short paragraphdefending the wolf's actions.
Then move to more sophisticatedliterature from your grade level anthologyto model these levels of thinking. Askstudents to recall such details as what vexed the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart ?
Have the students compare and contrastthe narrator before and after the policearrive. Can students think about whatmight have happened after the narrator
confessed to murdering the old man at theend of the story? If students pretended tobe the judge at the murder trial, whatsentence would they give the narrator and why? The higher students climb thefloors of the skyscraper, the more effort ittakes and the more their views change. The top floor allows them to acquire agreater understanding of the literaturebecause it provides them with sweeping views helping them to create the bigpicture.
Attached is the Skyscraper Thinkingblackline master to use with your students.I have also provided an example blacklinemaster copied from the article written byPaziotopoulos and Kroll that models howyou might also use this as an assessmenttool. The example provided is one from ahealth class asking students todemonstrate their knowledge of thecirculatory system.