In her previous post, Unlock author Carolyn Westbrook looked at how Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Objectives can be used to teach critical thinking. In the final post of the series, she looks at how the new Cambridge course does so.
Instead of the usual representation of Bloom’s Taxonomy as a triangle, the new Cambridge series, Unlock, uses the circular version we explored last time. This version better represents an integrated approach to critical thinking in which skills can be practised in any order, rather than the hierarchical approach suggested by the triangular diagram.
When teaching critical thinking, it is important to remember that Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTS) – remember, understand, apply – can be taught at all language levels, not just the lower levels. Similarly, Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) – analyze, evaluate, create – are not restricted to higher level language skills; they can also be taught at lower levels, too.
Consequently, each unit of Unlock includes exercises which promote both LOTS and HOTS, with the higher order skills sometimes coming before the lower order skills, depending on what is required of the student in a given unit. All the practice exercises related to critical thinking skills feed directly into the final productive task (spoken or written) in each unit.
Some examples
This example (taken from the Level 4 Listening and Speaking book) illustrates how a lower order thinking skill (understand) is combined with a higher order thinking skill (analyze) using relatively high level language. These tasks feed into the speaking task, which requires the students to do a presentation relating to the content of the pie chart.
On the other hand, these tasks, taken from the Level 1 Reading and Writing book demonstrate how higher order thinking skills (create) as well as lower order thinking skills (understand) can be used even at lower language levels.
In addition to the critical thinking tasks provided, we can provide extra practice for students after reading or listening to any input texts by asking the so-called “wh-” questions:
• Who has written the text/provided the information? Do you know the name? Is he/she a specialist in the field?
• When was it written? Is it an old text or a new one? Could things have changed since the text was written?
• Where did the information come from? Where was it written or where was it published?
• Why was it written? Does it provide information? Is it presenting an argument?
• Which side(s) of the argument does the author present? Are there any arguments that the author does not mention?
• How does the author justify the argument(s)? Is the argument logical?
• What do you think? What do other authors think? Do you/they agree with this argument?
These questions encourage students to think beyond the text, instead of automatically accepting whatever they read or hear. By adopting a scaffolded approach to teaching critical thinking, students are engaged in challenging yet interesting activities which promote critical thinking in both higher order and lower order thinking skills across all the four language levels of the series. The tasks are student-centered so that learning emanates not so much from the teacher but from the students as individuals or from collaborative learning in pairs and groups. By feeding directly into the final output tasks, the critical thinking skills exercises encourage scaffolded learning which, importantly, has a genuine purpose.
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We regret that Unlock is not available in North America.