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Developing Thinking Skills
(Bloom's
Taxonomy)
Teachers are always asking
questions! With a little bit of practice, we can use our questions to help
children develop their thinking skills. How we word our questions is very
important.
The use of critical
thinking is one of the most valuable skills we can pass on to our students.
Certain types of questions require us to use different kinds or levels of
thinking. According to Bloom's Taxonomy, a well-known classification system,
thinking skills or levels of learning can be placed in six categories.
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Knowledge
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Comprehension
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Application
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Concrete
Thinking Skills
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Analysis
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Synthesis
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Evaluation
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Critical
Thinking Skills
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Knowledge
: remembering previously learned material
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Asking the Right Questions:
Some words and phrases
such as: name, recall, how many, when, where, list, define, tell, describe,
identify, who is ..., what is ..., when did ...
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Sample questions:
* How many inches in a
foot?
* Who is the President of
the United States?
* Which animals have
stripes?
Comprehension
: understanding the meaning of remembered
material
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Asking the Right Questions:
Some words such as:
describe, predict, identify, differentiate, review, explain, estimate
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Sample questions:
* Explain how a
caterpillar becomes a butterfly.
* What information can we
tell from this diagram?
Application
: use information in a new way
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Asking the Right Questions:
Some words to use are:
demonstrate, apply, illustrate, show, solve, examine
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Sample questions:
* How would the story
have ended if Grandma had company when the wolf arrived?
* How would our country
be different if the flow of settlement had been from west to east instead of
east to west?
Analysis
: involves breaking down information into
parts, and/or examining the parts.
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Asking the Right Questions:
Some words and phrases to
use are: what are the differences, analyze, explain, compare, separate,
classify, arrange
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Sample questions:
* What is one difference
between eggs laid by a turtle and a robin?
* Compare and contrast
the story elements in Cinderella and Mufaro's Beautiful Daughter.
Synthesis
: involves putting parts together to form
a new whole
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Asking the Right Questions:
Some words and phrases to
use are:combine, rearrange, substitute, create, design, invent, what if?
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Sample questions:
* Now that you have read Cloudy
With a Chance of Meatballs, what might happen if it became cloudy and
toys fell from the sky?
* What if Abe Lincoln
lived today? What problem might he solve?
Evaluation
: involves forming and presenting an
opinion backed up by sound reasoning
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Asking the Right Questions:
Some words to use are:
assess, decide, measure, select, explain, conclude, compare, summarize
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Sample questions:
* Do you think we should
abolish traffic lights? Why?
* Is the 18th Ammendment
is a good law? Explain.
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