Professional Documents
Culture Documents
3 Use Critical Questioning To Support Your Learning: Image Credit: Rawia Inaim
3 Use Critical Questioning To Support Your Learning: Image Credit: Rawia Inaim
learning
Learning in an online environment requires you to move beyond simple memorization of
course concepts. To gain knowledge that will support you in your growth as a lifelong
learner and in your future career, you will want to interact with course concepts deeply
and in ways that are personally relevant to you.
One way of picturing deeper learning is Bloom’s Taxonomy.
The levels of Bloom’s taxonomy build upon each other. While you need to be able to
remember key concepts, your courses will spend more time developing your ability to
apply, analyze, evaluate, and create using this knowledge. As you encounter new
concepts, you will want to use critical questioning to understand the concepts at all
levels, moving from surface to deeper knowledge. The chart below includes some
questions that might be relevant at each level.
Level Question Stems
• What is the definition of…?
• Who did…?
Remember (knowledge recall) – retrieving relevant
• When did…occur?
knowledge from long-term memory
• How much/many…?
One method for creating study questions or planning active learning activities is to move
step-by-step through each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Begin with a few questions at
the Remembering level. If you don’t yet know the technical language of the subject and
what it means, it will be difficult for you to apply, evaluate, analyze, or be creative.
Then, go deeper into your subject as you move through the levels. Learning at
university requires you to learn the basics of your discipline by remembering and
understanding; however, you will spend much more of your time applying, analyzing,
Here is an example of what this might look like. What questions can you create for
your topic?
Image Credit: Rawia Inaim
Try It!
Pick a subject area in which you are working. For each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy on
this page:
• Develop a question and answer it to show that you can think about the material at that
level. Use the example questions on the handout above as a guide.
• Think about how your questions would allow you to assess how much you know and
what level you are working at.
Level Question
Remembering Remembering and Recalling information.
My question(s):
Understanding My question(s):
Analyzing My question(s):
Evaluating My question(s):
Creating My question(s):
Media Attributions
• Bloom’s Graphic
• finblooms example
1. Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching,
and assessing: A revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. New York:
Longman. ↵
2. Bloom, B., Englehart, M. Furst, E., Hill, W., & Krathwohl, D. (1956). Taxonomy of
educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive
domain. New York, Toronto: Longmans, Green; Salustri, F. (2015). Four levels of
questions. Retrieved April 23, 2018,
from http://deseng.ryerson.ca/dokuwiki/design:four_levels_of_questions. ↵