Videos: Supporting learning with LOTS and HOTS

Discover how Bloom's LOTS and HOTS can help you support and engage learners.

Three young learners of diverse backgrounds standing outside looking at a poster together

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Introduction

This page is designed to support you in applying Bloom's taxonomy to your lesson planning. It focuses on LOTS (lower-order thinking skills) and HOTS (higher-order thinking skills). Using this framework can help you scaffold learning effectively, ensuring that all learners are supported, engaged and appropriately challenged.

How to use this page

As you work through this page, take time to reflect on the questions or, if possible, discuss them with your colleagues. Watch the video clips to learn more. Sample answers are available in the expandable sections, and you can refer to the video transcript at any time.

Before viewing

What do you know about Bloom's taxonomy of LOTS and HOTS?
Can you think of any examples of tasks that involve LOTS or HOTS?

Before viewing – suggested answers

Bloom's Taxonomy pyramid

Bloom's taxonomy is a framework for organising different levels of thinking and learning objectives. The framework starts with more basic lower-order thinking skills (LOTS) like remembering and understanding. It then moves up to more advanced skills that use higher-ordering thinking skills (HOTS) like analysing, evaluating and creating. Teachers can use the framework to create tasks that incorporate LOTS and HOTS to provide challenge and differentiation for learners.
Watch the video to find examples of tasks that involve LOTS and HOTS.

While viewing – task 1

Watch the first video clip [from 11:22 to 12:58] to hear Griselda Beacon explaining LOTS and HOTS.

Which of Griselda's suggested activities would be examples of tasks that require learners to use LOTS and HOTS?

Task 1 – transcript

Now, this. I'm not going to work on this table right now, I just want to show it, but we're going to go back to it at the end, when we have gone through all the, all the ... for the tasks that we're going to show today. Right? So I will use this again at the end. But what I would like to pay attention to is that everything that you will see today was inspired by Bloom's taxonomy model so, and they have to do mainly with what cognitive tasks I create and how they can also, you know, work with communication.

So Bloom, very simply summarised here, works with what tasks we carry out for our learners to develop different thinking skills, like remembering, understanding, applying the new content, analysing the new content, evaluating and creating. And he divides them into lower-thinking skills and higher-thinking skills. The lower-thinking skills are the remembering, the understanding and the applying, while the higher-order thinking skills is when they can analyse, compare, contrast, categorise, evaluate and create, right? So all of these need to be part of our unit.

Task 1 – suggested answers

LOTS

Remembering – making lists, playing memory games, reviewing vocabulary, drawing

Understanding – matching words and definitions, describing and classifying the animals

Applying – conducting a class/school survey

HOTS

Analysing – differentiating between animals using Venn diagrams, and organising and examining information in running dictation

Evaluating – selecting information from survey to draw conclusion about (least) favourite animal

Creating – making a poster to present survey information, storytelling activities, performing role plays

While viewing – task 2a

This task is divided into three short video clips. Watch the first clip and note the techniques that Griselda proposes to scaffold (support) language learning and encourage learners to speak English in class. [watch from 12:57 until 14:06 minutes]

Task 2a – transcript

Now let's begin with our teaching sequence. Let's see how we start. We will see that the activities get more and more complicated as long as we continue right. The first activity is a very simple activity. It is just to ask them to work in pairs and together make a list of the small animals they can find in the garden. So they just write their names, and maybe they draw them. And we need to provide some support. Remember the scaffolding? And the support we can provide is posters on the classroom walls with all these small animals and their names in English, so they can go through the classroom and have a look and write down the animals they know, right? Or they would they like as well.

Now you can also provide extra support, like picture dictionaries or encyclopaedia or some some Internet sites that they can see or, you know, find out information.

Task 2a – suggested answers

Providing posters on classroom walls as a vocabulary resource, picture dictionaries and encyclopaedias or suggest internet sites that they can use to search for information.

While viewing – task 2b

Watch the next video clip [from 17:47 until 25:46 minutes] and note even more examples of scaffolding that you can use.

Task 2b – transcript

So this would be our first activity. We started remembering, remember Bloom's taxonomy, remembering and vocabulary, learning new vocabulary, creating the, the poster. So we are drawing and writing at the same time to, to, to recycle as well the vocabulary. So the next proposal is to work, to play, to play, to play card games. Playing is necessary as part of primary. Playing is a mode of learning and playing cards becomes a very active learning activity.

Now the first card game is a memory game. And here we are working at word level. Right? And it's simple. They have to match the picture and the word, right? And this can be a whole-group activity, right? Everybody can be playing at the same time.

But then you can design another, another card game describing small animals. Here the teacher will provide cards, and they will have, for example, the picture of one small animal with only one characteristic at the back. So one kid gets the card of the butterfly, and it says the butterflies are colourful. Then another kid gets another card with a butterfly which says, butterfly has, have wings, etc., etc., like four characteristics for each animal. So the kids have to go around the class and find other learners who have the same animal.

So they, they come together, and then they read all the descriptions, and in so doing together they create a small animal profile, and then they need to read these characteristics out loud for the rest of the class. So now they are reading, they are looking for somebody with the same animal, and they are creating small paragraphs. Right? This is when you move into more sentence level.

And the third activity is similar, but it becomes a listening activity. In this case the teacher provides ... the teacher has all the cards, and the, the group is divided into three or four groups, and each one of them has a bell. So the teacher reads the characteristics out loud, and the different groups need to guess what animal it is. When a group knows, they ring a bell. And so they say the animal. Now, if the animal is correct, they get a point, but if the risk was not correct, they may get one point less, so you can play with that. And again, now they are not reading what they have already read. They are listening only, and they're all, you know, games that they are playing together as a group.

Now, the next card game is a classic CLIL activity, and you give them all the, the cards with all the pictures of the small animals without the, the, the characteristics now, only the pictures, and what they need to do is in small groups, they try to group the different small animals following their own criteria. And the teacher always provides an example. For example, I mean, ladybirds and ants. And what do they have in common? Well, that they have six legs. So the categorisation was because of their number of legs. So then they do that, and you will be surprised to see what kinds of groupings they do, right? And it can be because of colour. It can be because of ability. It can be because of some, some physical characteristic that these small animals have.

And in this way, what we are doing is, they are categorising, and that is a higher-order thinking skill. So if we are thinking about Bloom's taxonomy, right? And they are working collaboratively because they're always working in small groups and they are developing autonomy as well. Right? And so in this way, we have provided opportunities for both content, knowledge and language to be interwoven.

So once we have done all the, the cards, these card games at the same time can be used at any time when you have these five minutes before the end of the class, and you need to to think of an activity that is very quick. So you can always have these games as support in case you need that, right? Or sometimes learners finish early, some groups, so you can give them one of these games to play while the others are finishing their tasks.

The next activity involves, it's connected with – remember the four pillars of the four Cs – it has to do with the community. And so now we are leaving the classroom and we are joining the whole school, and for that we carry out a survey – What's your favourite small animal? And ideally, the kids prepare a form, a survey form with all the small animals and the squares for the names of the people to say what animal is their favourite, and they carry their small animals poster that they have created to give the respondents some support. So they are scaffolding the respondents' answers, right?

So, in this case, they go around the, the school. They ask teachers. They ask other learners. They ask other school staff: what is your favourite small animal? And they complete the task. When they come back to the classroom, we are going to use all that information they collected because it has to make sense, right? Otherwise why would we have gone to, to, outside the classroom walls if we would not use that information?

And so what we would do is, in class, we would go through a rank ordering game, and for this we're going to provide some sentence frames to help them organise the information. For example, two out of ten like spiders, five out of 15 prefer butterflies. So, in this case each of the learners at the groups complete their survey.

But then, when each one of them has their own information about their own survey, we can have a rank ordering game with all of the surveys and see which is the most liked small animal in the school, or the least likeable, right? So that would come out of this rank ordering game, and we, as teachers, can decide whether we do, whether we do only one or both of them. In that way, we have also included the community in our learning of the small animals.

Task 2b – suggested answers

Providing playing cards with visual and textual information.

Providing oral examples at the beginning of an activity, e.g. grouping the animals.

Using the learners' animal poster for reference.

Providing sentence frames for the rank ordering game.

While viewing – task 2c

Watch the final video clip [from 30:20 until 37:56 minutes] and note even more examples of scaffolding that you can use.

Task 2c – transcript

Now, here we have a clear, this is an infograph. So remember that the learners had all the paper, all these small pieces of paper inside their cups, right? So, in this case they will complete an infograph. The teacher may provide an infograph template to be done in the classroom. And so what they do is they write the information they collected about their small animal, in this case it's the bees to create this fact file, right? So, for example, in this case, when it's about the bees, they transport pollen from flower to flower, they produce honey, they fertilise a variety of plants and trees, and they maintain biodiversity. When they are doing this, we are working with sustainable education – which was one of my anticipated learning outcomes, remember? – and, as we know, is transversal, it's a sustainable education, it's transversal to everything we do at school.

Now, of course, this activity, this infograph could be also done digitally, of course, and ideally you hang all the work that the learners do on the classroom walls, right? Because they need to see their work being shown, right?

Now, very few of you use Venn diagrams. Well, let me show you one Venn diagram that you could use when, to move on to higher-order thinking skills. And this one is, this one is a Venn diagram in which learners compare different small animals, and this one is spiders and ladybirds. For this, the teacher gives, you divide them in pairs, so they are working in pairs. The previous two activities were in small groups. Now this one is in pairs. You give each one of them a Venn diagram template, which is the one that is there which says spiders and ladybirds, and you give them the small paper cup which says spiders and ladybirds, with all the information that they are going to use. So you see how they manipulate objects, and that is a fantastic strategy for them to, to, to learn without being aware, because when the body is very, very active, they are learning, they are learning a lot. So what they do is they pick up the little pieces of paper. They read them. They must be either for ladybirds or spiders or for both, and they put the pieces of paper on either one or the other side.

So I have ... I have ... one question here. Is it a ladybird or is it a spider? They have – I'm reading it to you – they have a black head with white patches on either side. Now let me see if you can write on the chat whether this is a ladybird or a spider. They have a black head with white patches on either side. All right. OK, so Celine says ladybird. All right. OK. Now, let me see if I have ... Now, if we have a look at the ladybird, the ladybird is the one who has a black head with two white patches. So very good, Celine, you were right.

Yes, the ladybird, says Alice. Oh, thank you. Lots of people say spider. We need to check, right? Now, this would be a nice activity for us to check whether spiders also have two white patches. So, this is the good thing about this movable Venn diagram is when they finish, and they have completed the activity in pairs, and you, as teacher, have been, you know, walking around checking that everybody's working, the kids put all the little pieces of paper again inside the paper cup, and they pass it on to another group, and they get another one. So you can also decide whether you go through the whole circle, or whether you want that each group works with one or two, depending on the time you have, right?

So, finally, not finally because then comes the whole creative part, but regarding Venn diagrams and graphic organising and scaffolding. The next one is another game. Now, this time the game is the following. Learners will use, one learner will wear a headband and something like this, yeah, it's there, there on the slide, and the learner doesn't know what animal he or she or they are, right? So, what they need to do is they need to ask questions so the group – yes/no questions – so the group can tell what animal. Yes or no, and they can guess what animal it is. So, in this case the main language part is asking questions, asking yes/no questions, right? We are working with that. Now, most probably learners will need scaffolding for this. So, for all these questions, what you prepare is a bank of questions.

So you use just a simple paper cup with lots of questions inside, and we can call it a bank of questions. We can prepare the bank of questions with the learners before we actually start playing. So we have lots and lots of questions we can resort to, to ask when we are playing, right? Like, for example, 'Can I fly?' 'Yes, you can.' 'Have I got six legs?' If they say no, then we have limited the scope of animals or small animals, right? We have to think of animals who have eight legs, or who have no legs, or who have 14 legs or 100 legs, etc. But not six, for example. And in that way we can, the game develops, right?

Task 2c – suggested answers

Providing graphic organiser templates to create fact files for the different animals.

Providing a bank of questions on slips of paper for the guessing game.

After viewing

Do you think Bloom's model of LOTS and HOTS is useful for supporting and engaging learners? Why/ Why not?
Which of these scaffolding techniques do you already use? Which would you like to try?