Promoting Higher Order Thinking Skills in a Cross-Cultural Communication Project

Abstract

Students are going to need skills for employment including: self-reflection, and cognitive skills, such as critical thinking, flexibility and creativity. Consequently, teachers need to provide opportunities for students to develop these skills in the classroom. Within teaching requirements, teachers have to be creative, and innovative. We propose that by implementing cross-cultural communication projects based on the revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy, teachers can offer students opportunities to improve skills needed for employment in the future. In this study, we implemented a project with tasks and outcomes based on Bloom’s taxonomy. The aim was to provide a clear structure for students to gather new knowledge whilst encouraging the further processing of this knowledge and critical reflection. To accomplish the tasks, students used English as a common communication instrument. Using BT gave a theoretical foundation to the tasks through which the data could be examined. The data shows using Bloom’s Taxonomy provided a way for students to strengthen cognitive skills and complete the tasks given. This study suggests cross-cultural projects combined with BT can be a powerful tool in helping students prepare for future employment.