1
HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS ASSIGNMENT
Higher Order Thinking Skills Assignment
Student
Liberty University
Critical Thought Levels and Activities
The two critical thought levels from the revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy by
Anderson and Krathwohl selected for my teaching demonstration are analyze and evaluate.
2
HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS ASSIGNMENT
Introduction
It is a simple concept … “to teach is to help someone learn” (Brookfield, 2013). The goal
of an instructor is to help students “acquire information, develop skills, generate insights, and
internalize dispositions they did not know before” (p. 14). To accomplish these objectives, an
instructor can no longer get away with standing behind a podium and simply lecturing their
adult students over a specific topic. Active learning is necessary “to avoid students going into
passive learning mode” (Svinicki & McKeachie, 2014). Learning for an adult student is
significantly different compared to how adolescent students learn. According to Merriam &
Baumgartner (2020), “adults can call on their experiences in the formulation of learning
activities, as well as serve as resources for others” in any type of learning atmosphere. For
adults, “learning is fundamentally selective” as it is their life experiences that “control the
learning” (p. 443). As an instructor, it is not only important to grasp an understanding of how to
engage adult learners in acquiring information and developing skills, but it is equally as
important to challenge the learner in utilizing Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) to evaluate,
analyze, and interpret the subject matter. In using critical thought levels from the revised
version of Bloom’s Taxonomy, students will have an in-depth understanding on the benefits of
utilizing Family Resilience, a strengths-oriented approach in therapy, over other therapeutic
approaches in treating clients who have suffered from abuse.
3
HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS ASSIGNMENT
Below is a description of each level along with a teaching activity related to my teaching topic
and demonstration.
Critical Thought Level 1
Analyze, the third highest level in the revised Taxonomy, focuses on the ability to
separate material into component parts and show relationships between parts. Simply put, this
level provides students the opportunity to use their own judgment and critical thinking skills to
inspect or investigate what they have learned regarding the topic. The activity below will
incorporate this level of Bloom’s Taxonomy in an effort to engage and motivate students to use
critical thinking skills for deeper understanding of the benefits of Family Resilience in treating
clients who have suffered from abuse.
Activity 1: Although there are many active learning techniques that instructors use to engage
learners, I will use the Think-Write-Pair-Share strategy to encourage deeper thinking on the
subject of Family Resilience and the benefits of using this approach to help individuals who have
suffered from abuse. First, I will start the class by opening up an opportunity for students to
personally reflect on the following questions:
What evidence can you find that supports that Family Resilience, a strengths-oriented
approach in therapy, is the best approach for helping someone who has suffered from
abuse?
Can you make a distinction between this approach and other approaches that therapists
have used to help individuals suffering from the trauma of their abuse?
After reading the questions aloud, students will be given 15 minutes of “quiet time to respond
to the questions in writing” (Karge, et al., 2011). Once the time is up, students will be asked to
4
HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS ASSIGNMENT
pair up with another student and discuss what they have written, paying close attention to the
similarities and differences. “It is important to give students enough time to share their answers
and how they arrived at the answers with their classmates” (p. 54). After adequate time,
approximately 25-30 minutes, students and their partners will present their findings, including
differences in opinion, with the entire class. The reasons this particular technique was selected
was completely based on the advantages identified by Karge, et al. (2011), which include the
following:
Personal interaction motivates students and engages the entire class;
Quiet or shy students are more likely to answer questions or complete the task with
a partner instead of having to stand in front of the entire class; and
The instructor can check for understanding by listening to the various groups during
the activity and collecting responses at the end (p. 54).
This is one activity that will promote critical thinking during the teaching demonstration.
Critical Thought Level 2
Evaluate, the second highest level in the revised Taxonomy, focuses on the ability to
judge the worth of material against stated criteria. So basically, this level provides students the
opportunity to justify a stand or a decision. Within this level, students will be given an
opportunity to argue, defend, judge and/or critique a specific issue or problem. Essentially,
students are able to voice their thoughts/opinion and passionately express where they stand on
an issue without feeling judged by their peers.
Activity 2: To promote critical thinking, students will engage in active learning through
classroom discussions and debates. Discussion will revolve around the traumatic impact of
5
HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS ASSIGNMENT
abuse within a person’s life. The classroom debate will cover the effectiveness and/or
ineffectiveness of using the Family Resilience approach to help individuals who have suffered
from abuse. The questions that will drive the discussion and debate are as follows:
Discussion Question: Based on what you know, how would you explain the impact of
abuse on a person’s life? How can counseling help someone who has been abused?
Debate Question: How would you prove/disprove the effectiveness of the Family
Resilience approach in helping victims find healing from their past abuse?
According to Svinicki and McKeachie (2014), “The most common discussion opener is the
question, and the most common error in questioning is not allowing students time enough to
think.” For this reason, after presenting the discussion question to students, they will be given
no more than five minutes to collect their thoughts and write down brief, bulleted talking points
that will guide them as they share their responses to the entire class. Once they gather their
thoughts, the floor will be open for someone to volunteer and share their thoughts. As the
instructor facilitates and helps move the discussion along, opportunities will be given for
students to respond to what is shared by other students in the class. The goal is to “help
students learn to evaluate the logic of and evidence for their own and others’ positions” (p. 39).
Giving students the opportunity to debate will also meet this goal as well as provide
students with a better understanding of both sides of the issue. In this case, students will be
able to prove or disprove the effectiveness of using the Family Resilience approach to help
victims of abuse. To complete this activity, students will first reflect on the question on their
own, then the class will break up into five or six groups. Each group will compare its members
reflections and make a determination whether their stance will be in support of or not in
References
6
HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS ASSIGNMENT
support of the therapeutic approach being effective in the life of someone who has been
abused. Debating in this manner has shown to help drive critical thoughts in students. Walker
(2020) said that “after debating, students reported improvements in literature searching … and
making evidenced-based decisions.”
Conclusion
A critical thinker is someone who is actively engaged in the thought process … they not
only analyze, evaluate, and interpret information but “he or she is also analyzing inferences and
assumptions made regarding that information” (p. 263). Leading the teaching demonstration
with activities such as Think-Write-Pair-Share as well as Discussion and Debate help cultivate
and advance the minds of students as they are challenged in using critical thinking skills to
enhance their learning. According to Svinicki and McKeachie (2014), students have a
need to
know that they are being listened to and that their class is a safe place to express ideas. In my
teaching demonstration, it will be a high priority to establish this type of atmosphere in an effort to
successfully advance students’ ability to formulate their thought processes as they hone in on
the effectiveness of utilizing the Family Resilience approach in therapy to help individuals
overcome the traumatic impact brought on by abuse. The ultimate goal is to ensure that
students have a deep understanding and pay “attention to relevant information, organizing it into
coherent mental representations, and integrating representations with other knowledge” (p. 38).
7
HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS ASSIGNMENT
Brookfield, Stephen D. (2013). Powerful Techniques for Teaching Adults. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Karge, B. D., Phillips, K. M., Jessee, T., & Mccabe, M. (2011). Effective Strategies For Engaging
Adult Learners. Journal of College Teaching & Learning (TLC),8(12), 53.
doi:10.19030/tlc.v8i12.6621
Walker, Stacy E. (2020). Active Learning Strategies to Promote Critical Thinking. Retrieved from
https://www.asec.purdue.edu/lct/HBCU/documents/ActiveLearningstrategiestopromote
criticalthinking.pdf
Merriam, S. B. and Baumgartner, L.M. (2020). Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide.
Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass.
Svinicki, M. D. and McKeachie, W. J. (2014). McKeachie's teaching tips: Strategies, research,
and theory for college and university teachers. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage
Learning.
