Learning Taxonomies, Critical Thinking, and Global Issues Content-Based EFL GREG GOODMACHER KEIWA COLLEGE Abstract: Many educational administrators, material designers, and ESL/EFL teachers, especially those teaching global issues, strive to develop the lower-order and higher-order thinking skills that many researchers consider to be integral to critical thinking. Valuable references that can guide educators who are contemplating how to develop these skills are learning taxonomies, or taxonomies of educational objectives. Bloom s (1956)Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain, is particularly useful. Although critical thinking was never specifically targeted in Bloom s book, this paper discusses how educators can use learning taxonomies as measuring sticks to evaluate whether teaching materials and activities stimulate the cognitive processes that many researchers consider to be necessary for critical thinking. The paper also provides examples of educational objectives for a specific Global Issues in Language Education (GILE) course, concluding with a call for global issues content-based EFL educators to collaborate in creating a compendium of model learner objectives for the GILE community to refer to. 50
greg goodmacher - learning taxonomies, critical thinking, and gile Questions Regarding Critical Thinking, Global Issues, and Materials Development Teachers, educational administrators, and material creators who believe in the importance of the teaching of critical thinking and Global Issues in Language Education (GILE), may be interested in studying the convergence of critical thinking, language education, and GILE content-based instruction. Educators with an interest in the teaching materials used in content-based EFL courses, in particular those courses related to global issues, might think about the following questions: i) How can we know if our teaching materials are developing the lower-order and higher-order thinking skills (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) that many researchers consider integral to critical thinking? ii) Is there a useful frame of reference that we can rely upon for guidance in the evaluation, creation, and adaptation of materials that aim to improve both language and critical thinking skills in global issues content-based ESL courses? The Value of Learning Taxonomies Valuable references that can assist us in our various educational contexts when we consider the questions above are learning taxonomies, or taxonomies of educational objectives (Bloom, 1956). Learning taxonomies represent the steps of learning from the most basic to the most complicated activity (Anderson, 2001; Biggs & 51
ctll, volume 3, issue 1 Collins, 1982; Bloom, 1956; Harrow, 1972; Fink, 2003; Krathwohl, 1964). Spring (2010) explains that Bloom s learning taxonomy covers six major classes that include knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Some learning taxonomies isolate the domains completely; some combine the cognitive and affective domains; and some integrate all of them. This paper focuses on the cognitive domain. Bloom, along with a large group of psychologists and educators, dedicated many years to researching and writing the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, the Classification of Educational Goals Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain. Intended to facilitate communication and understanding among educators in all fields, this taxonomy is a resource that ESL/ EFL administrators, researchers, and teachers can benefit from familiarizing themselves with. In the foreword, Bloom explains, You are reading about an attempt to build a taxonomy of educational objectives. It is intended to provide for classification of the goals of our educational system (p. 1). Researchers and teachers of critical thinking skills in ESL classes can improve their work through an understanding of educational objectives. An educational objective is, as Ammons (1962, p.2) explains, a statement of purpose. Clear educational objectives bring focus to teaching, provide guidance to students, and assist educational material developers in evaluating the usefulness of teaching materials. Specific educational objectives also help educators ensure that their lessons include all that they wish their courses to cover. An example of an educational objective 52
greg goodmacher - learning taxonomies, critical thinking, and gile that includes language, environmental issues content, and critical thinking might be the following: Students will be able to read newspaper articles about climate change and discriminate between statements of fact and statements of opinion. With that objective in mind, a teacher can search for useful materials, a material designer can create or adapt materials, and students can understand the purpose of their lessons. Content-based courses intertwine the knowledge and skills that students studying a particular field should gain along with various aspects of language such as vocabulary, grammar, pragmatics, and rhetoric. The introduction of activities that foster critical thinking into content-based courses adds another layer of complexity to class preparation. Critical thinking was never specifically targeted in Bloom s book. However, as he (Bloom, 1956, pp. 1-2), explains, Teachers building a curriculum should find here a range of possible educational goals or outcomes in the cognitive area ( cognitive is used to include activities such as remembering and recalling knowledge, thinking, problem solving, creating). Bloom divided cognitive processes into the following categories, which he arranged in hierarchal order: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Knowledge is the simplest category; the most cognitively complex category is evaluation (Huitt, 2011). These categories are not isolated from each other, and the lines between them are blurred. For example, analysis and evaluation have similarities. Furthermore, a person using higher-level cognitive processes is also using lower-level cognitive 53
ctll, volume 3, issue 1 processes. For instance, comprehension requires knowledge, and application requires both comprehension and knowledge. Despite the overlap between the boundaries of the cognitive processes, the taxonomy is useful for language teachers setting the learning objectives for their courses, especially teachers who want to incorporate activities that promote critical thinking into content-based language education. ESL/EFL teachers of contentbased courses may be inspired to create educational objectives, which are similar to the examples in Bloom s taxonomy,to fit the needs of their own teaching situations. While the literature offers a plethora of definitions for critical thinking, many teachers and researchers, even if they have different ideas about what it is, would probably agree that the categorized cognitive processes listed above are integral aspects of critical thinking, and that a critical thinker naturally does many of the actions that Paul (2006, p.4) describes below. - raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely; - gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively; - comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards; - thinks open mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; - communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems. 54
greg goodmacher - learning taxonomies, critical thinking, and gile These actions are important in all language classes. However, they are especially important for students who are discussing, reading, or listening to topics that are often considered to be global issues. These are, as Cates (2015, p.24) explains, world problems such as war, hunger, poverty, oppression, sexism and environmental destruction, as well as to concepts such as peace, justice, human rights, world citizenship, social responsibility and international understanding. Writers of teaching materials for global issues content-based courses can use learning taxonomies as measuring sticks to evaluate whether or not their materials and class activities stimulate students to use the relevant cognitive processes. These range from the simplest activity of remembering of knowledge, such as recalling the words used to refer to common objects, to the most complex activity of creating something new that connects to topics covered in teaching materials. Just like stairs leading upward, educational materials should ideally lead students from memorizing basic structures to understanding more complicated structures, and to gaining proficiency with higher-level thinking processes. Before deciding textbooks for class adoption, teachers should evaluate them to determine if they include activities that will stimulate all of the cognitive processes listed in Bloom s taxonomy. If a textbook fails to include sufficient exercises at differing levels of cognitive processing, that may be justification for continuing the search for a better textbook. Test makers can consider the various levels of cognitive activities described in taxonomies when making decisions related to what types of items to include 55
ctll, volume 3, issue 1 in examination materials. Educational administrators can utilize learning taxonomies as resources when deciding the aims of their institutions. If educators are to play a significant part in creating a society composed of individuals who are able to think critically about global issues, such as immigration, future fuel sources, feeding a growing population and resolving border disputes, schools around the world must produce educational experiences that stimulate students to think at higher-levels of cognition. Examples of Educational Objectives Associated with Cognitive Processes for an Environmental Issues Content-based EFL Course Teachers of GILE content-based EFL/ESL courses should find the taxonomies especially useful when planning objectives and lessons that aim to promote the development of critical thinking, language skills, and knowledge of social or global issues. While planning syllabi for such courses, teachers could derive content and language objectives for their courses that correspond to each level of a taxonomy. To provide an example for educators planning GILE courses, educational objectives that connect with the hierarchy of Bloom s taxonomy are given below for a hypothetical course on environmental issues. Starting from knowledge, the lowest level of Bloom s hierarchy of cognitive processes, students in an environmental issues contentbased EFL course would be asked to remember the names of global 56
greg goodmacher - learning taxonomies, critical thinking, and gile warming gases and the names of types of renewable energy. Mere memorization of terminology is not included in any respectable definition of critical thinking, but this level of knowledge is a necessary step that students must take before ascending to a stage where they can use linguistic terms in activities or situations that demand critical thinking. The next level directly above knowledge is comprehension. Two sample objectives for this level would be that students be able to verbally summarize information that connects climate warming to human activities, and that students be able to create a visual representation of the drivers of climate change. Students who met these objectives would demonstrate their comprehension of information that was presented to them in reading or listening texts. A teacher could decide to have students write their summaries or give verbal summaries. Visual representations such as mind maps or flowcharts would also show that students were able to process and understand the information that was presented to them in a foreign language. Following the level of comprehension is the level of application. After considering the local terrain and weather conditions, students should be able to explain which types of renewable energy would be best for their city or prefecture. Another objective might be that students be able to hypothesize and express what might happen to their home prefecture if temperatures increased to the extent expressed in the text given to them. Analysis is the next level of cognition in Bloom s taxonomy. One 57
ctll, volume 3, issue 1 educational objective appropriate to this level might be the following: students should be able to listen to statements of politicians and scientists who either believe in climate change or deny its existence, and then categorize those people as either climate change believers or deniers. Another objective that requires analysis is for students to be able to write surveys related to climate change, ask their survey questions to others, and give oral reports of their evaluations of the information contained in the survey responses. Students should, at the level of synthesis, be able to create or produce products or ideas that are novel and that correspond to the content and language they have been studying. Two example objectives might be for the students, in small groups, to discuss and jointly propose suggestions for a new energy policy for their nation or to create a video that explains methods for their school to produce energy from school waste materials or other nearby resources. For the level of evaluation, the students would listen and consider all of the new energy policies created by other students while considering both the potential of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the practical feasibility of implementation. The students could judge and rank the plans according to the criteria of both effectiveness and feasibility. They could be asked to verbally explain their reasoning for their ranking of other students plans. Conclusion and Recommendations Problems such as climate change, unequal representation in business and political arenas, international land disputes, banning 58
greg goodmacher - learning taxonomies, critical thinking, and gile or allowing new technologies, and retributions for wars caused by older generations do not, unlike TOEIC tests or mathematical questions, have agreed-upon right or wrong solutions. Considering these problems in GILE or other EFL courses, discussing them, and working toward resolutions to such important problems requires flexibility in thinking, high level language skills, and all of the cognitive processes described by Bloom in his taxonomy. Therefore, educators who want to increase the critical thinking abilities of students should consider stimulating students with curriculum materials and activities that provide them with valuable, current, and useful knowledge, and which also develops skills like comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Planning educational objectives in advance of each lesson will guide the students in their development. Bloom s taxonomy has many samples of educational objectives for a wide variety of fields. However, there is a dearth of example educational objectives for the teaching of global issues to EFL students. The example objectives written above relate only to one environmental issues content-based EFL course and a hypothetical one, at that. The compilation of a wide range of educational objectives specifically designed for educators involved with critical thinking and GILE content-based EFL courses would be a valuable resource for the field. It is hoped that educators will share their ideas and experiences and create a compendium of educational objectives for numerous social issues that are of great concern to EFL students in today s fast-changing global environment. 59
ctll, volume 3, issue 1 References Anderson, L. W. & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A Taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Addison Wesley Longman. Ammons, M. (1962). The definition, function, and use of educational objectives. The Elementary School Journal, 62(8), 432-436. Biggs, J., & Collis, K. (1982). Evaluating the quality of learning: The SOLO taxonomy (structure of the observed learning outcome). New York: Academic Press. Bloom, B. S. (1956).Taxonomy of educational objectives, handbook I: Cognitive domain. New York: David McKay Co Inc. Cates, K. (2015, October). What are global issues? Global Issues in Language Education Newsletter, 78, 24. Davidson, B., & Dunham, R. (1996, January 1). Assessing EFL student progress in critical thinking with the Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test. Retrieved from Eric Data Base (ED403302) Fink, L. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Harrow, A. (1972). A taxonomy of the psychomotor domain. A guide for developing behavioral objectives. New York: McKay. 60
greg goodmacher - learning taxonomies, critical thinking, and gile Huitt, W. (2011). Bloom et al. s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Educational Psychology Interactive. Retrieved from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/ cognition/bloom.html [pdf ] Krathwohl. (1964). Taxonomy of educational objectives: Handbook II, the affective domain. New York: David MacKay Company. Paul R., & Elder, L. (2006). The miniature guide to critical thinking: Concepts and tools, 4. The Foundation for Critical Thinking, Dillon Beach, CA. Retrieved Dec. 8, 2015, from http://www.criticalthinking.org/files/concepts_tools.pdf Spring, H. (2010). Learning and teaching in action. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 327-331. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2010.00911.x 61