From “Summarize” to “Synthesize” Even what seems like a low-level "summarize" task can become beautifully high-level when we climb Bloom's Taxonomy.
Ask Them Which Is Better Moving from analysis to evaluation sure makes things more fun. Why? Check out these examples. Which would you rather answer?
Running A Curiosity Project Merlin Mann stated that employees’ motivation increases when they get to “build a robot” once in a while. That is, do something creative beyond regular work. Can we do this at school? Offices have “casual Fridays,” can we have “curiosity Fridays?"
Upgrading Questions with Key Words How adding a single "key word" can upgrade your questions to a whole new level.
Which One is Not Like The Others? When we ask kids "which one is not like the others", our cleverest students love to find ways to pick the non-obvious answer. So why not use this as a framework for pushing students deeper into our content.
Students Need More Than Independent Work It's so easy to just ask advanced students to work by themselves in a corner. But, the more advanced the kid, the more they need advanced instruction and adult guidance.
Create A Holiday Take students beyond the decorations and ask them to identify what a holiday reveals about a culture's values. Then, push them further as they develop their own holidays.
Beware “Real World Problems” Why I stopped looking for “real world” problems and started aiming for “interesting.” The real world is often tedious and annoying. Interesting never is!
Divergent Questions (How To Ask ‘Em) How to ask Divergent Questions and ensure that your students are thinking rather than merely remembering.
Create A Civilization: The River Most humans want to live near fresh water, which means that most civilizations settled near a river! Let's add a river to your students' civilizations.
