Levels one and two, knowledge and comprehension, are used most often by teachers. The remaining four levels — application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation — should be used by teachers more often than they are at present. Even for students who have difficulty with learning, the higher levels of the taxonomy should be utilized. A student with learning difficulties could still do a question at the evaluation level as long as the question was relevant to the student’s own life or dealt with concrete rather than abstract ideas. Evaluation of various ideas is an important skill that all students should be encouraged to develop. The teacher has to work with students at their current level of skill to encourage them to develop higher thinking skills to the best of their ability. Students experiencing learning difficulties should not be kept at the knowledge and comprehension level. In fact, these areas are often very difficult for students to master because of the heavy reliance on the memorization of material.
Partial Participation
Whether a student should participate fully or only partially is decided
in the planning as well. Partial participation might involve each student
doing a segment of an activity based on his or her level of skill. Group
work with each member assigned a different task is the most common example.
A student who is able to understand a concept but works more slowly than
the rest of the class may have two options:
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to have more time to complete the same objectives;
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to be responsible for understanding the concept but to not have to complete all the activities required of other members of the class.
Partial participation is particularly important for students with more severe learning disabilities. Students who are unable to do the main objectives of the lesson but have their own specific objectives can be included in the activities of the class but their participation will certainly not be at the same level as other students.
