Technological Bites for Increasing Higher Learning

Benjamin Bloom created a differentiated order of six thinking levels that we all go through in understanding a subject matter. These thinking levels are as follows:

“Knowledge: What do you know? Comprehension: What do you understand about what you know? Application: How can you use what you know? Analysis: What similarities, problems, parts, trends, do you see in what you know? Synthesis: Can you combine what you know to develop a new idea? Evaluation: How can you evaluate what you know? (Lorrie Jackson) ”

The problem with most classroom teaching within schools today is that they only take their students to the first two levels of learning: knowledge and comprehension. This is typically seen in the “memorize the answers and regurgitate them on the test” assessments. Most students leave classrooms with little understanding of how to apply, analyze, synthesize or evaluate their knowledge. How can teachers help facilitate higher orders of learning in their students? In this blog we will talk about simple ways using technology that teachers can help their students develop higher orders of understanding while using critical and creative thinking skills.

The first level of learning is knowledge and there are some very helpful ways using technology to encourage students to retain knowledge. In studying a certain subject matter students can be taken to the research lab. Instead of simply being passive learners hearing the teacher talk, they can use search engines and find the information themselves. In order to find more grade appropriate information it may be wise for the students to use the Internet Public Library or Kidsclick. It is important that students also write down the information in their own words instead of simply cut and pasting. This will help them retain the knowledge.

How do we help our students comprehend? There are some great resources online to help students comprehend subject matter as well. Try flash cards or matching games at Funbrain or Quia. For older students reading books, there are quality questions at BookAdventure. It may also seem prudent to use games like Jeopardy in class while making the class more of a competitive environment.

Application, how do we help our students apply their knowledge? Obviously the best way to do this is to find ways in which they can use it and of course technology can help in this endeavor. For instance if your students are studying a subject in which there are opposing sides such as politics, there are very fun polls online in which they can answer questions and find out where exactly they land. One such tool is PollZone. If the students are collecting a lot of data and need a way to present it to the class, there are tools online to help them graph it such as NCES Create a Graph Page. It may also be helpful for students in high school to use a wiki, such as wikipedia, to write down their research about a topic.

How do we help students analyze a topic and take it apart? One such resource particularly helpful with history projects is that of EyeWitness History. They will be able to listen to eyewitness accounts of a historical era as they increase their own understanding of history. They can look at cultural artifacts at American Memory or they can use ThinkTank to help them analyze and subdivide research topics.

How do we help students synthesize and put it back together? Obviously again, there are many resources, but some of the most affective are Backflip which can help particularly elementary and junior high students create folders containing all the websites used in the research. They can research three to four people at Biography channel put together common themes on a research topic. It may even be helpful for students to create a webpage or a blog putting all their final research together.

Finally, how do we help students evaluate their subject matter? One particularly interesting way to have students evaluate their information is by allowing them to participate in an online debate or forum. University of California Berkley has one such site called Wise specifically for controversial science debates. Students can research and post their own side. Also students can create their own surveys online and ask their friends to participate in them as they evaluate others thoughts on certain subjects. One such site for this is Zoomerang.

With students of this generation becoming particularly so technologically based it is becoming increasingly hard to reach them by the lecture format; the best way to reach them and increase their higher order learning maybe through the use of technology. This takes the learner from being a passive listener to being an active participant in learning. These technological tools and many others will help students develop not only knowledge and comprehension but application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The last four higher orders or learning particularly help develop critical & creative thinking which will be most helpful for students in college and as they get into the real world.



Resources

http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic69.htm
http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/techtorial/techtorial011.pdf