Most first world countries is the ability to deal

most first world countries), is the ability to deal with information in all the various
aspects of our everyday lives.
The level of literacy required to function in everyday life is constantly
shifting upward .... The key policy question is how to help all citizens to
develop, maintain and continuously advance their literacy skills in order to
live and learn in a knowledge-based and information-intensive society
(Literacy for Tomorrow, 1999, p.14).
That is, being literate refers to the ability to locate, understand, evaluate, utilize,
and convey information at home, at work, and in the community .
In an earlier section, we discussed Perry’s model of intellectual development ;
that is, Stage 1 ( dualism ), Stage 2 ( multiplicity ), and Stage 3 ( relativism ). We
also discussed the issue of whether or not we should assist learners to mature
intellectually (and vis a vis, personally). What we have not touched on yet,
however, is how we might go about helping learners to develop intellectually.

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Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy of educational objectives is very useful for adult
educators in this regard. As the taxonomy below suggests, Bloom believed that
the educational objectives of learning range from surface level processing or
rote learning in which we simply acquire knowledge/skills, through to deep level
processing or critical thinking . The value of Bloom’s taxonomy is that it
provides us with the type of learning activities we will need to engage in with our
students in order to promote different levels of thinking across the continuum.
Objective “Learning” involves… At this level we would ask
learners to …
Knowledge …simple acquisition of
knowledge/skills without a
deeper understanding or
comprehension of either
…list, define, tell, descr ibe,
identify, show, label, collect,
examine, tabulate, quote,
name, who, when, where…
Comprehension … understanding the
knowledge/skill being
learned
…summarize, describe,
interpret, contrast, predict,
associate, distinguish,
estimate, differentiate,
di scuss, and/or extend …
Application …using the
knowledge/skills a variety
of situations …
…apply, demonstrate,
calculate, complete, illustrate,
show, solve, examine, modify,
relate, change, classify,
experiment, discover …
Analysis … breaking
knowledge/skills down into
component parts, making
inferences, developing
conclusions
…analyze, separate, order,
explain, connect, classify,
arrange, divide, compare,
select, explain, infer …

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Synthesis rearranging
knowledge/skills to form
new knowledge/skills,
identifying patterns,
integrating
skills/knowledge from a
variety of areas
…adapt, combine, integrate,
modify, rearrange, substitute,
plan, revise, create, design,
invent, answer “what if?”
questions, compose,
formulate, prepare,
generalize, rewrite…
Evaluation …assessing the value of
theories, presenting a
reasoned argument, taking
a decision based on the
value of the evidence …
… convince, critique, explain,
assess, decide, rank, defend,
justify, measure, appraise,
recommend, select, judge,
discriminate, support,
conclude, compare …
It should be noted that although we have discussed “content” and “process” in