Using Application – Level Three of Bloom’s Taxonomy
Application is the third level of Bloom’s Taxonomy:
- Knowledge
- Comprehension
- Application
- Analysis
- Synthesis
- Evaluation
When we focus on application, we find ways to help learners use what they have learned.
To apply their existing knowledge and understanding.
Here, we’ll think about targeted application.
As a reminder, here’s a list of application keywords:
- Apply, Calculate, Choose, Demonstrate, Dramatize, Employ, Implement, Interpret, Operate, Perform, Practise, Role-Play, Sketch, Solve, Suggest.
Using Targeted Application to Accelerate Learning
Targeted application can accelerate learning.
This premise is simple.
If we direct our efforts and pay attention to the results of what we do, then application of existing knowledge and understanding will yield significant insights, and this will speed up learning.
To put it another way.
Practice makes perfect.
Or even better:
Active practice makes perfect quicker.
Here are three examples of what this looks like.
Example One: Prioritise the Success Criteria
Prior to the start of an application task, take a few minutes to carefully explain and model the success criteria to learners.
Invite learners to talk to a partner about why these success criteria are relevant and what impact working towards them will have, in terms of learning.
Start the activity and circulate through the room.
Your focus should be on whether learners are targeting their efforts in the direction of the success criteria.
If they are not, draw their attention back to these and encourage them to refocus their efforts.
At the end of the activity, lead learners in a brief reflection in which you and they think about how knowledge and understanding have been enhanced by prioritising the success criteria.
Bear in mind that this technique relies on you having high-quality success criteria that are both challenging and achievable.
That way, focussing on them is more likely to yield the impact you seek.
Example Two: Repeated, Focussed Practice
Set up an activity in which learners do the same thing three or four times, but with the emphasis each time on trying to apply your learning better than you did previously.
A good example is speed debating.
We split the class in two, present a statement and indicate that half the class will argue in favour and half will argue against. Learners have ten minutes to develop their arguments.
When the time is up, learners pair up with somebody from the other half of the class.
In each pair there is a member from each team.
The teacher indicates which team will go first.
These learners have ninety seconds to put their argument to their partner.
When the time is up, teams swap over.
After that, there is a sixty second period in which both teams can speak, allowing learners to argue with each other, in their pairs.
Next, the teacher asks one team to stand up. These learners must find a new partner.
The activity then repeats.
This whole process can be done three, four, or five times.
On each occasion, slightly decrease the time available but indicate that learners should still try to convey the same amount of information, to the same standard.
The repeated application serves to help embed the ideas in learners’ minds as well as refine and develop them in light of their repeated efforts.
You can take this principle – of building repeated focussed practice into an activity – and use it in a wide range of settings.
Example Three: Problem Stations
Set up a series of stations around the room.
Each one should contain a different problem connected to the topic of study.
Divide learners into groups.
There should be the same number of groups as there are stations.
Explain that groups will need to move around the room, visiting each station in turn.
Their aim is to apply their knowledge to solve each problem they face.
Give out sheets of paper on which groups can note down their solutions.
The problems you place at each station should be similar but also different.
They should connect to the same topic – what learners already know and understand.
But they should also vary so that learners must keep applying their knowledge and understanding in slightly different ways.
In each of these activities, learners are asked to repeatedly apply their knowledge and understanding in a relatively short space of time and to do so in relation to some clear target or purpose.
This helps to accelerate learning and sustain great progress.
It targets learner effort, facilitating repeated practice, with the emphasis on application.
