Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

1. Bloom's Taxonomy represents the process of learning, without completing the first step one cannot move forward to the next step. The chart listed describes learning as a process of: Knowledge -> Comprehension -> Application -> Analysis -> Synthesis -> Evaluation
Bloom's representation is slightly different in word choice yet basically measures the same thing. It looks like this: Remembering -> Understanding -> Applying -> Analyzing -> Evaluating -> Creating

Learning Objective: The student will write a compound sentence using conjunctions.

Knowledge: The student will be asked what he/she knows about conjunctions.

Comprehension: The student will be told what a conjunction is and how to spot them out in sentences.

Application: The student will create simple sentences using conjunctions.

Analysis: The students will share their sentences with each other and decide whether the use of a conjunction was proper or not.

Synthesis: The students can collaborate what they have learned and form paragraphs using sentences with conjunctions.

Evaluation: The student will evaluate his/her paragraph with past paragraphs they have written without conjunctions and then evaluate their paragraphs with other classmates.

2. I do not believe that the students were less capable than Paul assumed them to be. I feel that the students had what they believed to be prior knowledge that led them to believe that "summer temperatures were warmer than winter temperatures because the earth was closer to the sun in the summer". So when Paul emphasized "that summers were hotter than winters because of the changes in the angle of the earth and the sun" the students simply skimmed over his statements because they believed what they had already thought. Then when the students had to write about it in essay form is was harder for them to remember which was the false reasoning and which was the true reasoning. I think Paul probably just lectured the students, and therefore put the blame on his teaching techniques. I believe that had it been a multiple choice question, it may have been a little easier for students to differentiate simple because the two options would be stated as opposed to having to come up with ones own wording. If a lab, or an example, was given to physically show the students the differences would help students to learn the material and do better on answering the question next year.