Revised Bloom's Taxonomy and Gardner's Multiple Intelligences

Bloom's Taxonomy provides a structured presentation of human cognition from low-level thought processes like simple recall to higher-order thinking skills like synthesis and evaluation. Bloom offers a "stair step" description of the levels of human understanding, with each new level building on previous levels. The reading instructor can use revised levels to devise questions about reading selections that target higher-order thinking skills.

Howard Gardner of Harvard has identified seven distinct intelligences.  Gardner says that these differences "challenge an educational system that assumes that everyone can learn the same materials in the same way and that a uniform, universal measure suffices to test student learning.Students learn in ways that are identifiably distinctive. The broad spectrum of students would be better served if disciplines could be presented in a numbers of ways and learning could be assessed through a variety of means." 

Differentiated Practices Can Enrich Content Understanding and Enhance Lifelong Vocabulary Acquisition

Steps to Bloom's Taxonomy Questioning:

1. Acquaint students with the levels of Bloom's taxonomy, focusing specifically on the type of thinking that occurs at each level and the kinds of questions arising from this type thought. Post a chart of Bloom's taxonomy for quick reference.
   
   
2. Distribute a common reading selection and discuss the levels of Bloom's taxonomy by asking questions about the selection that demonstrate the type of thought required in each level.
   
   
3. Divide the class into groups. Provide a single page of Bloom's levels of cognition and sample questions for each level to each member of the groups.
   
   
4. Assign each group a familiar topic (e.g., news event, hobbies, sports, etc.). Have the groups compile questions about their topic for each level of Bloom's hierarchy. Share these questions with the class and evaluate how well they reflect each level of thinking.
   
   
5. Finally, distribute a reading selection to each group and repeat the exercise above. Be sure to encourage student discussion of the resulting questions. Help students match the questions they develop to the most appropriate level in Bloom's taxonomy.

A useful site in relation to using Bloom's with vocabulary is:  http://www.readingeducator.com/strategies/bloom.htm