Application, Analysis and Bloom’s Taxonomy

Application and analysis are the third and fourth levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy:

• Knowledge
• Comprehension
• Application
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• Evaluation

Here’s a list of keywords for both:

Application:

• Apply, Calculate, Choose, Demonstrate, Dramatize, Employ, Implement, Interpret, Operate, Perform, Practise, Role-Play, Sketch, Solve, Suggest.

Analysis:

• Analyse, Appraise, Categorize, Compare, Contrast, Differentiate, Discriminate, Distinguish, Examine, Experiment, Explore, Investigate, Question, Research, Test.

I’m going to walk through four things to consider whenever you are using application, analysis or a combination in your planning.

Four ways you can ensure you get the most from these types of activities.

Then, I’ll look at three strategies for using analysis to promote and deepen understanding.

Getting the Most from Application and Analysis: Strategy 1 – Necessary Knowledge Comes First

Ensure learners are in possession of sufficient knowledge and understanding to gain significant benefits from your application and analysis activities.

If their knowledge and understanding of the content is limited, it will be harder for them to successfully apply this and to engage in meaningful analysis.

Knowledge and comprehension precede application and analysis in the taxonomy.

If we have shaky or insecure foundations (or no foundations at all), it’s hard to build up.

In some situations, you can use application activities to firm up the foundations.

This is when we get learners to practice applying what they know, help them to reflect on their efforts, and create progress as a result.

(The progress comes through the insights revealed by the reflection. These insights help us to improve.)

In these circumstances, recognise that learners may struggle or fail to begin with.

That’s part of the trial and error they’ll need to go through to nail down their understanding within the context of application.

Getting the Most from Application and Analysis: Strategy 2 – Scaffolding and Modelling

Use scaffolding and modelling to help learners access your activities.

Scaffolding gives learners a route into activities.

It takes them some of the way, setting them on the path to success.

Modelling gives learners a different insight, affording them a chance to witness what it is you would like them to do, or how you would like them to think.

They can then copy this, before internalising it and making it their own.

Scaffolding application and analysis tasks tends to make them simpler.

This simplification is what allows learners to access them.

Modelling tends to increase the level of learner skill, by giving them a model from which to borrow or that they can copy.

This means learners are better placed to access the activity than was previously the case.

Getting the Most from Application and Analysis: Strategy 3 – Plan for Repeated Application

Don’t shy away from planning opportunities for repeated application.

Learners may need to practise applying knowledge and understanding multiple times before they fully master it at.

This takes us back to that old adage …

Practice makes perfect.

Or, for me:

Active practice makes perfect faster.

(Active practice is when learners are fully engaged in the practice they’re doing.)

You can vary things by:

• Using different types of application task.
• Asking learners to apply their knowledge and understanding in different ways.
• Adding caveats or additional challenges that make applying your knowledge and understanding a little bit trickier.

The last option is particularly good for challenging more-able learners as they work through a series of application activities.

(But bear in mind that these learners will often be ready to move on before their peers and, in some cases, will not benefit from repeated application. Like the gifted learner who ‘gets it’ after a couple of tries.)

Getting the Most from Application and Analysis: Strategy 4 – Plan in Tandem

Be prepared to differentiate by planning application and analysis activities in tandem.

Here, we set the class two activities to be done sequentially: first the application, then the analysis.

But we do so with the proviso that moving on should only happen once mastery of application has been achieved.

This creates a situation where some learners move on and complete the analysis activity, some move on but don’t finish it, and some remain working at the application task.

This is a helpful way to differentiate for a whole class while maintaining a high level of challenge for all.

(If a learner spends all their time on the application task, and must struggle to complete this successfully, then we’ve found the right level of challenge for them, at this point in time. Meanwhile, a more-able peer can breeze through the application task and spend most of their time on analysis, which provides the right level of challenge for them.)

Using Analysis to Promote and Deepen Understanding

To finish up, let’s focus in on analysis.

Analysis encourages learners to develop a more critical perspective.

By more critical we mean that learners come to see whatever is at issue in shades of grey, rather than in black and white.

This is because analysis reveals the structure of things, taking us below the surface and, in the process, challenging our assumptions.

Here are three examples of how you can use analysis to promote and deepen understanding:

Example One: Analytical Questioning

Pose challenging, critical questions to learners.

These can be verbal or written.

They can form the basis of the lesson, of activities, of discussions, or of extension tasks.

You can pose learners analytical questions while they are working on activities.

For example, you might walk around the room during a group work task, drop in on a group and give them a question to mull over.

Use the analysis keyword list as a starting point for developing questions:

• Analyse, Appraise, Categorize, Compare, Contrast, Differentiate, Discriminate, Distinguish, Examine, Experiment, Explore, Investigate, Question, Research, Test.

The goal of this technique is not so much the asking of individual questions.

(That’s obvious, and I’m sure you do it already.)

It’s the habituation of learners into a way of thinking.

The technique only has limited impact if you do it now and then.

It has a much greater impact if you do it all the time.

Every day.

That way, learners get into the habit of thinking analytically.

And start internalising your questioning, so they are primed to ask more analytical questions themselves.

Example Two: Analytical Question Checklist

Give learners a checklist of analytical questions they can return to repeatedly to think critically about a topic or subject.

Here we are modelling thinking for learners, providing them with a critical thinking framework relevant to a particular area.

For example, we might give learners a set of questions they can use to analyse information they get from the internet.

Learners can ask these questions every time they find something they think might be of use.

This helps them to think more critically about the information they discover.

Over time, they learn the checklist.

It stops being a scaffold and instead becomes part of them.

You can use this method for virtually any topic area or subject.

For younger learners, you might include a set of images on the checklist, alongside the questions, to make it more concrete and to aid recall.

Example Three: A Spirit of Enquiry

Pursue a spirit of enquiry in your lessons.

By this I mean that you turn the focus away from the transmission of knowledge and shine it instead on the pursuit of insight and understanding.

This still covers the transmission of knowledge, but also encourages the development of a critical, analytical mindset.

(The key here is about prioritisation. If you prioritise the transmission of knowledge, you risk getting trapped there, at the bottom of Bloom’s Taxonomy. If you prioritise a spirit of enquiry, you automatically operate further up the taxonomy. To do so, you must attend to knowledge and comprehension as well. It comes as part of the package.)

You can promote such a spirit by:

• Posing your lesson objectives as questions.
• Framing the lessons and activities you plan with questions learners must answer.
• Regularly including testing, researching, investigating and experimenting activities in your lessons (see the analysis keywords list).
• Giving learners opportunities to ask questions themselves – of you and the learning.

All this still involves learners learning the knowledge we need them to know.

But it does so in a way that also promotes critical thinking and gets learners into the habit of looking deeper.

Which, over the long run, is almost certain to yield excellent results.