Back in the 1960s when I was learning science from textbooks, the questions came at the end of the chapter. I found I had to look back into the chapter to try and answer them. Just over ten years later when I wrote my first text book, Life Science, I peppered the questions and activities all over the pages yet it still received ten excellent reviews!
By the time I came to write the Now! science series of books with John Murray in the mid 1990s (which later evolved into the Checkpoint Science books) I had tempered my enthusiasm and set the questions in the margins next to the appropriate text.
I had also thought about how and why we ask questions and in the reference section of our local library (there was no internet then) I discovered Bloom’s Taxonomy of intellectual competencies (I hope you are still with me). I used this as a framework for basing my questions which are still in the books today.
Fast forward to the twenty first century and Bloom’s taxonomy is now used as a basis of assessing how people think, often under the title of critical thinking skills. Recently I have used it in My Moving Up with Science series to help teachers and parents see examples of material which tests these skills (there is a short critical thinking section in the ‘About this book’ feature on the last page).
What are these thinking skills? The best way to find out is to use them so here we go.
(I am illustrating the process with posters which you can download from the website to use with your children.)
Reading so far, I hope you have acquired some knowledge of my thoughts
.. and can understand how I came to use Bloom’s Taxonomy..
.. then apply this knowledge and understanding by searching out the section on the website and analyzing the content…
… before evaluating the posters..
and maybe creating a thinking corner for your children.
You can download the posters from the teacher resources section of the site.
Find out more about Critical Thinking Skills and Bloom’s Taxonomy.
