Children’s Work: Asking Questions. ‘Bloom’s Taxonomy is like a ladder’.

Hannah, Sara and Alex from Sixth Class

are learning about asking questions.

We have seen that there are easy questions

like ‘who?’ ‘when?’ ‘where’?

 

We have to remember what we have read or heard

in order to answer these questions.

 

Then there are harder questions like

‘how?’ and ‘why?’

 

To be able to answer there we have to

understand what we have read or heard.

 

Then there are even more difficult questions

like when we are asked to explain or to compare.

 

The questions we ask are like a ladder,

starting off with the easy ones at the bottom,

they get harder as we move up the ladder.

 

We get asked a lot of questions in school.

but what we really love to do is ask them.

 

Here are some questions we asked today

about the projects we did in class on

the Solar System.

 

These are easy questions,

from the bottom of the ladder.

 

To answer them all we need to do 

is to remember what we learned

when we were doing this project.

 

Alex

Sara

Hannah

If you would like to learn more about teaching children

about Bloom’s Taxonomy, click on this link.

3. How You Can Help Your Child’s ‘Higher Level Learning’ using Bloom’s Taxonomy

 

New Blooms Pyramid
Photo Credit: Andrea Hernandez via Compfight

This is the final part of three posts

on how you can help your child’s learning over the summer.

The first post was about 1. How to help your child with Reading

the second was about 2. How to help your child with Maths

This last one is ‘the honours course’

and is about how you can help

your child’s ‘higher level learning’ using Bloom’s Taxonomy.

 

Bloom’s Taxonomy is

a hierarchy of levels at which we learn.

There are a list questions 

you can make use of

to develop your child’s thinking.

 

You can ask your child these questions,

about their reading or just when talking to them.

 

This list of questions begin with ones

you have already been asking your child

when working on their reading comprehension;

who? when? what? and where? 

 

However you will see from these links

that the list goes on, the questions get more complex

so for example;

you are asking your child ‘to compare’ or ‘evaluate’.

 

You might like to download this chart

(from Enokson on Flickr)

and stick it up on the fridge as a reminder

of these questions.

 

To be asking questions like this

may seem artificial at first

but as time goes on asking

the ‘higher order questions’

will come as second nature to you

and will benefit your child’s

‘higher order thinking’.

 

After extensive practice at this level,

the next step in using Bloom’s Taxonomy

would be to encourage your child to ask the questions

and to encourage them to

move from the ‘lower order’ questions;

who? where? how? and when?

to the higher order ones.

 

I am hoping to do a short course about this

this later in the summer,

and will post again then.

 

In the meantime, these links are informative.

How Blooms Taxonomy Can Encourage Children’s Critical Thinking Skills from Exquisite Minds.com

How Parents Can Use Bloom’s Taxonomy To Encourage Higher Level Learning In Their Children

 

Critical Thinking Skills
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Enokson via Compfight