Flying Higher to Get Deeper

Predrag Jovanovic presented on 'Flying Higher to Get Deeper' at the 7th online Future of English Language Teaching Conference.

See the video recording below:

Abstract

21st Century education is about giving students the skills they need to succeed in the world and helping them grow the confidence to practice those skills. In our globally connected reality, all learners, from very young ones to adults, need new skills and knowledge to succeed. As education is responding to technological, economical, and societal shifts across the globe, educators are adapting and finding new ways to support their students.

Even though teachers have always helped students learn to think, the new reality is pushing us to move beyond remembering and recalling information into areas of higher-order thinking skills and deep learning. Bloom’s Taxonomy is a classification system used to define and distinguish different levels of human cognition. It is used as a common language for educators to define and discuss specific learning outcomes and assessment methods. The goal of an educator using Bloom’s taxonomy is to promote higher-order thought in their students by building up from lower-level cognitive skills.

This workshop provides teachers with practical ideas on how to use the taxonomy as a tool to assess and improve learning experiences in the classroom. Teachers will learn how to define their learning objectives and how to structure their lessons to help learners through the learning process within an organized framework. Because it is in the higher levels of thinking that our brains truly and deeply learn information, it’s important that teachers are able to integrate higher order thinking into their everyday teaching practice.

About the presenter

Predrag Jovanovic is a university-qualified teacher of English Language and Literature with further qualifications from Cambridge (CELTA) and Trinity (DipTESOL). He currently works as a freelance teacher trainer and an ELT consultant. He has been teaching for almost 15 years and has spent his entire career in different international contexts. His professional and academic interests include language assessment, teacher education, and curriculum development.