Sustaining Pace and Challenge - Part 3

This blog is Part 3 of 4.

You can access the other parts here:

Bloom’s Taxonomy

We move now to consider an exceptionally valuable tool all teachers can call on to ensure their lessons retain good pace and a high level of challenge.

That tool is Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.

The taxonomy was put together in the 1950s by a group of American educators led by Benjamin S. Bloom.

Hence the name.

The taxonomy arranges the key cognitive processes that constitute learning from the simplest to the most complex.

This gives a hierarchy of processes that, when worked through, allow an individual to gain mastery over a given topic.

The six categories are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

(Bear in mind that this refers to logico-linguistic learning. For practical learning another taxonomy, of the psychomotor domain, is a better fit.)

Subsequent research has suggested swapping over the last two categories.

This is not of great concern to us.

Synthesis and evaluation are always the most challenging things we ask learners to do, regardless.

It is perhaps easiest to think of the categories as pairs.

At the bottom of the taxonomy, we have knowledge and comprehension, the two simplest processes.

Next, we have application and analysis, both of which are more intellectually demanding.

And finally, we have synthesis and evaluation, the two processes that make the greatest cognitive demands.

Roughly speaking, a learner will need to exhibit mastery in one level or pair of levels before being able to exhibit mastery at the next stage.

So, for example, you need to know what an adjective is before you can analyse an author’s use of adjectives.

Similarly, you need to be able to apply the idea of political authority before you can evaluate the extent to which William Gladstone was able to maintain this during his last stint as prime minister of the United Kingdom.

The model remains in use today because the delineations and ordering of thought processes it makes clear are not context dependent.

While we are more than half a century further on than the educational forefathers who constructed the taxonomy, the nature of thought has not shifted during that time.

(The content of the curriculum has shifted, considerably. But the underlying basis of thought – the epistemology – has not.)

We still need to know what a thing means before we can comprehend it, just as we still need to be able to analyse the use of something before we can start to create an alternative approach ourselves.

To further reinforce the point, a cursory glance at any exam board mark-scheme will reveal the taxonomy underpinning the assessment objectives.

In addition, nearly all assessments and mark-schemes created in school also rest on the same structure.

We can use the taxonomy in all manner of ways to help ensure our lessons remain challenging and have good pace.

It can act as the basis for lesson objectives and learning outcomes.

We can use it to develop thought-provoking questions, to plan a series of progressively challenging questions (moving up the levels of the taxonomy), and to tailor our questions to specific learners (matching their current levels of understanding to different levels of the taxonomy).

We can also use the taxonomy when constructing activities.

It is to this we will now turn.

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Create Challenging Activities

The taxonomy is concerned with mastery learning.

As a learner progresses up the different levels, so they gain an increasing mastery of the content about which they are learning.

Here are three ways we can use this fact to create challenging activities.

Three Activities, Three Categories

Imagine you are planning a three-part lesson.

Starter, main activities, plenary.

Let us take this method and say that we will base our starter and the main activities on different levels of the taxonomy.

We might even use the pairing procedure I outlined above.

So, for example, our starter will focus on knowledge and comprehension, our first activity will deal with application and analysis, and our second will look at synthesis and evaluation.

Planning in this way, we can be certain that the lesson will get progressively more challenging.

The taxonomy ensures it.

One Activity, Subdivided

Another approach is to take one of our main activities and to subdivide it into a series of steps, with each step based on a different level of the taxonomy.

So, for example, we might have a lengthy activity involving five separate steps.

The first focuses on comprehension, the second on application and so on.

Here, we are building progressive challenge into an individual activity.

It will not necessarily be the case that all learners will complete all steps.

But what we can be certain of is that all learners will be challenged, because they will continue to gain a mastery of the content as they progress through the steps at their own pace.

One Activity, Three Sections

This is a variation on the previous example.

Instead of subdividing an activity into a series of five steps, which on some occasions can be too time-consuming, we can create an activity that has three separate sections.

Here is an example of what this might look like:

Part One: Read through the information about Sikh festivals and summarise the key points in your own words (comprehension).
Part Two: Compare what you have identified with your knowledge of Christian festivals from last term – compare them to look for similarities and differences (analysis).
Part Three: Finally, use your knowledge of Sikh and Christian festivals to assess whether they are primarily about strengthening family and community bonds, or giving individuals an opportunity to display and renew their faith (evaluation).

As you can see, the task is inherently challenging because it is constructed on the back of the taxonomy.

When using tasks of this type, be aware that they may take longer to complete than other activities because they contain three separate elements.

In addition, decide in advance whether you want all learners to complete all sections, or if you will be happy for learners to get as far as they can within the time you give.

Here is a selection of keywords connected to each of the levels of the taxonomy.

You can use these to help you apply the taxonomy to your lesson planning.

Full Bloom’s Taxonomy Keyword List

Knowledge Keywords:

Arrange, Define, Describe, List, Match, Memorise, Name, Order, Quote, Recognise, Recall, Repeat, Reproduce, Restate, Retain.

Comprehension Keywords:

Characterise, Classify, Complete, Describe, Discuss, Establish, Explain, Express, Identify, Illustrate, Recognise, Report, Relate, Sort, Translate.

Application Keywords:

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

Analysis Keywords:

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

Synthesis Keywords:

Combine, Compose, Construct, Create, Devise, Design, Formulate, Hypothesise, Integrate, Merge, Organise, Plan, Propose, Synthesise, Unite.

Evaluation Keywords:

Appraise, Argue, Assess, Critique, Defend, Evaluate, Examine, Grade, Inspect, Judge, Justify, Rank, Rate, Review, Value.

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Create Pace

Throughout this series of blogs, we have thought of pace and challenge as going hand-in-hand.

While this is true, it has meant that we haven’t attended to the former quite as much as the latter.

Let us correct this bias.

First, we will look at how we can use the taxonomy to create pace, then, in Part 4, I will present five simple techniques on which you can call in any lesson.

Questions Framing Activities

Earlier, we noted that replacing the lesson title with a big question is an excellent way to generate challenge.

We can also create pace by framing each activity we plan with a question based on an appropriate level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

This gives each lesson segment a driving purpose: to answer the question that has been posed.

In addition, it creates a sense of overarching pace if we ensure that those individual questions move up the taxonomy, immediately situating each new activity as more challenging than the last.

Whole-Class Challenge Questions

If the pace of your lesson sags, ask yourself if this is because the work you have asked learners to do is too easy.

If it is, take your mind to the top two levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy and quickly construct a question connected to the topic with which you can challenge the whole class.

This technique allows you to change the focus of the lesson and, in so doing, alter the pace.

Bloom’s-Based Extension Boxes

Get two shoe boxes and paint each one a different colour.

One box will be the synthesis or creative thinking box.

The other will be the evaluation or critical thinking box.

Fill up each with a collection of extension questions and tasks. You can use the keywords listed above as the basis for these.

Then, introduce the boxes to your learners.

Explain they will be available during every lesson and that, as soon as learners complete an activity to your satisfaction, they will be able to go and choose an extension at random from either of the two boxes.

Once the system is embedded as a norm, this creates its own a sense of pace.

It has particular impact when a handful of learners start to finish the main body of work and then go to select an extension.

Their peers will look on enviously and work harder to achieve the goal themselves!

For more on Bloom’s Taxonomy, and the many ways you can use it in your planning and teaching, see my Bloom’s Taxonomy Knowledge Base.