Blooms_rose/wikipedia.org
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Like the different learning styles and intelligences, Bloom’s Taxonomy can help us teachers, understand more thoroughly our students learning process, which naturally, leads to better and more effective teaching.
The higher, the better.
What happens when we ‘walk through these learning steps’ is that the higher we go the better we learn. Something to keep in mind when planning our lessons is that: if we want to ensure that our students really learn a certain topic, we should encourage them to apply the higher thinking skills. This way they will understand better and it will be less likely that they’ll ever forget what they’ve learned.
Another very important thing to mention is that when students are not learning thoroughly, it is almost certainly because they are not ‘Analysing, Evaluating or Creating’ leaving their learning at the lower order thinking skills. They may be able to recall and understand but their knowledge won’t survive the real world; and in language learning specially, students need to be able to use their knowledge in their everyday life.
So, when do we apply it?
Always! Not only does it provide variety making our teaching more interesting and refreshing, but it also improves our teaching, and more importantly, our students’ learning. ‘So we must use it all the time, at all ages, and in all stages’.
But how do we apply it?
This I found quite difficult, sometimes it can be hard to identify and classify the different tasks that can be done for each level, specially the higher thinking levels. The verb classification charts were not very helpful because some are repeated in different stages, so I found this chart more useful: http://teachers.ash.org.au/researchskills/dalton.htm#top
Now I don’t know if I’m right but I get the feeling that very often Bloom’s Taxonomy is overlooked, particularly in ESL teaching, some textbooks might not include tasks that require higher thinking skills, and if they do most teachers choose to avoid these tasks. As I was looking at an English book designed for native speakers I was surprised to see how many of these tasks are used, I believe this is a great resource for ESL teachers. And so, I share with you a lesson I found on said book: The Macmillan ENGLISH Series 3.
LISTENING TO POETRY.
Read the guides for listening to poetry, put special attention to the keywords, that will help you remember them. –Remembering.
Guides for Listening to Poetry.
- Listen for the familiar things in the poem. -Remembering.
- Let the poem make you feel glad, sorry, sad, or gay. -Evaluating.
- See the pictures that the words make. -Understanding.
- Listen to decide why you like the poem. -Evaluating.
- Listen for beautiful lines in the poem. -Analysing.
Explain each guide with your own words. -Understanding.
Read questions 1-4. Listen to both poems. Answer questions 1-4.
1. What is there in the poem that make you want to sing inside yourself? -Evaluating.
2. What word made you see pictures? -Analysing.
3. What lines made you hear something? -Analysing.
4. Which poem do you like better? -Evaluating.
Listen first to Rachel Field’s poem “A summer Morning” and answer the questions, then do the same with the other one.
1. What do you like about the poem “A summer Morning” by Rachel Field? -Evaluating.
2. What things did the poet see? -Remembering.
3. What did the wind say in the poem? -Remembering.
……………………………………………………………….
4. What do you like about the poem “The Wind”, by Robert Louis Stevenson? -Evaluating.
5. What did the poet see the wind do? -Remembering.
6. What two lines does the poet repeat in the poem? -Remembering. Tell why you think he repeated these lines. -Analysing.
PRETEND YOU ARE A POET.
Make a picture in your mind of the way these things look or sound or feel: the wind, the rain, a puppy, a bell, a horn. -Applying.
Try to be a poet. Write some of your thought pictures into poetry. Read your poem aloud and remember to “sing” with it. -Creating.
You can download the scanned copy of this lesson here.
The Best Resources For Helping Teachers Use Bloom’s Taxonomy In The Classroom by Larry Ferlazzo.
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