Integrating Benjamin Blooms taxonomy questions into your lessons provides a way to differentiate and extend student learning.
Using higher order thinking skills and questioning is at the heart of truly differentiated instruction. For some of us, it takes a concerted effort to implement this into our daily lesson plans. Over time, it becomes a natural way of stretching our students ways of thinking and processing information.
The revised Blooms Taxonomy:
- breaks skills down by verbs rather than nouns
- has a greater emphasis on products, or showing understanding
- changes the organization of sub-categories for critical thinking exercises and skills
The taxonomy is a supplementary component to the critical thinking domain (one of the types of communication in the classroom).
3 Basic Levels of the Revised Taxonomy Questions
The basic level of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Knowledge) is now called “Remembering.” Synthesis and Evaluation have changed places, being labeled “Evaluating” and “Creating” (remember the switch from nouns to verbs?).
The table is based on the cognitive learning (or dimension) process. This is the domain that is generally referred to by educators.
Lower Level Questioning
Remembering
- Who, what, when, where, why
- How many?
- What do you know about…
- True or False
- What happened before/after…
- Can you identify…
Understanding
- What is the main idea?
- Can you retell…?
- What statements support…
- How would you illustrate…
- Give examples of…
- What is meant by…?
Medium Level Questioning
Applying
- How could you demonstrate…?
- What examples can you find?
- What was the turning point?
- What setting could you transfer the main character to and why?
- What could not have happened and why?
- How could you experiment to…?
Analyzing
- Can you make 2 or more categories from these terms?
- What are similarities between ___ and ___?
- Can you distinguish between fact and opinion?
- Compare and contrast your life to…?
- Identify characteristics of…
Higher Level Questioning
These are they types of questions teachers have to be really cognizant about using in order to reach our truly gifted learners. This is where growth occurs for our exceptional children.
Evaluating
- What grade would you assign the main character and why?
- What would the consequences be if…
- What will the influence of___be on your life?
- What is your opinion of…?
- How could you have changed the outcome?
- What was the most significant event?
Creating
- How many ways can you…?
- Can you compose an effective song or poem about…?
- What might be the antagonist’s point of view?
- Can you create a new product to tell about…?
- Write a letter to___explaining about…
- What would a possible solution be to…
There is a quick flip book available on Amazon.com called Quick Flip Questions for Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy