- Read 3 articles.
- A Century of change: the U.S. labor force, 1950-2050, Mitra Toossi, Monthly Labor Review, May 2002 (13 pages)
- The looming U.S. labor shortage: Baby boomer retirement will change everything, Conor Sen, The Wall Street Journal Marketwatch, March 14, 2012
- Despite Recession, High Demand for Skilled Labor, Louis Uchitelle, The New York Times, June 23, 2009 (approx. 2 pages)
- Write and post a reflection (1-2 pages, 500-1,000 words). In this reflection:
Synthesize and evaluate a socioeconomic or demographic change affecting employment in the 21st century. Teach your fellow students about this change. Refer to specific ideas, facts, or quotations in each of the two readings.
Use synthesis and evaluation thinking skills from Bloom’s Taxonomy. (Review Bloom’s Taxonomy in this module’s Reading: U.S. Employment Trends – How to Use Critical Thinking Skills.)
- At the end of your reflection, ask your fellow students a provocative question about linking the trend you explain to their own careers.
Bloom’s taxonomy is a way of classifying six levels of critical thinking:
- Knowledge
- Comprehension
- Application
- Analysis
- Synthesis
- Evaluation
The taxonomy was created by educational psychologist Benjamin S. Bloom and others. I believe that all students can become better thinkers by using Bloom’s taxonomy.
In our course, use Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, and Analysis for all activities. Assignments for Advanced level students also call for Synthesis and Evaluation skills.
Here are the thinking activities you can do for each skill:
Knowledge (Information gathering)
- Observe and recall facts, terms, and basic concepts
- Recall specific information
- Know the rules and attributes of policies and rules
- Name, label, describe, define different kinds of processes
Comprehension (Confirming)
- Understand information; grasp its meaning
- Interpret fact; compare and contrast them
- Translate knowledge into a new context
- Place information in a logical, meaningful sequence
- Infer causes
Application (Making use of knowledge)
- Demonstrate prior knowledge within a new situation
- Bring together the information knowledge required to solve a problem
- Clarify existing information by examining parts or relationships
Analysis (Taking apart)
- Divide a whole into component elements
- Gives reasons and specific evidence to support an argument
- Show logical sequences and provide closure
- Reflect awareness of reader’s questions or alternative evaluations
- Identify components of a process
- Analyze components of an argument, element of an event, etc.
- Identify components of expository and persuasive discourse
- Compare properties of objects, components of processes
- Compare causes and/or effects of separate events, trends, and other phenomena
- Given a generalization, recognize/explain the evidence that relates to it
- Infer themes, significance, motivations of human behavior and other phenomena
- Identify interrelationships of elements
Synthesis (Putting together)
- Compose or combine parts to form a whole
- Combine diverse elements into a coherent whole
- Combine thesis and antithesis in a dialectic that leads to greater understanding
- Integrate information systematically
- Map the interrelationships of evidence and explains reasons in support of a conclusion
- Given the evidence, details, come up with the generalization
- Identify several possible perspectives from which evidence or data might be viewed
- Make connections between stories in memory and newly encountered stories/incidents
- Identify links and common patterns
- Demonstrate ability to negotiate meanings and construct understanding
- Articulate effective causal structure in integrating/synthesizing information
- Effectively draws upon personal and/or institutional memory of problems and their solutions
- Synthesis provides closure, an endpoint that is satisfying both cognitively and emotionally
- Demonstrate good design features of coverage, coherence, uniqueness, and goodness of fit
- Shows ability to think about mental models and the implications/side effects that they entail
- Demonstrate flexibility of ideas, fluency of ideas
Evaluation (Judging the outcome)
- Evaluate soundness of procedures, credibility of conclusions, significance of findings
- Evaluate credibility and significance of arguments, decisions, reports
- Evaluate believability, significance, form, completeness, clarity
- Judge quality, credibility, worth, or practicality
- Use established criteria (rules of evidence) and explain how criteria are or are not met
- Establish criteria for judging or verifying the value or logic of ideas, models, theories
Specify goals and constraints, generate alternatives, consider risks and evaluate and choose best alternative