Connecting Telecollaboration and Bloom's Taxonomy

Telecollaborative projects help students develop critical thinking skills in many different ways.  Forcing students to think beyond the obvious answer and making them explain why they believe that is correct or incorrect starts a students critical thinking process.  There is no obvious answer that is exactly right or wrong, but it makes the students actually think about why they think it works or not.  I think the first article, Commonly Asked Questions about Teaching Collaborative Activities, brought up a very good point when talking about the importance of selecting groups.  They say it can be successful letting the students pick their own group, but it is also beneficial, especially when attempting to have the students use their critical thinking skills, to choose their groups for them.  That way they are not just with their friends who know how they think already, but then they work with people they are not comfortable with and then have to work together which will then develop both of the students critical thinking skills.  In the last article, it says that the sample verbs for the evaluation level where critical thinking is necessary are judge, recommend, critique, and justify which really tells me what is meant to be done by students in that area to be able to develop their critical thinking skills.  They need to defend what they are saying, but also question other students answers to make them justify what they are saying.

Critical thinking is necessary for students to be able to do, and developing this skill just takes time and practice.  There are many different types of telecollaborative activities that can help students achieve this, but it all starts with the teacher showing them that they have confidence that all students can develop this skill. Print Page in IE