Three-Story Intellect Overview

Three-Story Intellect Overview

There are one- story intellects, two-story intellects, and three-story intellects with skylights. All fact collectors who have no aim beyond their facts are one-story people. Two-story people compare, reason, and generalize, using labors of fact collectors as well as their own. Three-story people idealize, imagine, and predict. Their best illuminations come from above through the skylight.

This quotation is from Oliver Wendell Holmes, a physician and author who lived in the 1800s. Art Costa applied Holmes’s quote to academics and produced the three-story intellect model (Costa and Marzano, 1987). This model is similar to Bloom’s taxonomy, except that is categorizes thinking into three levels instead of six. The three levels work together to process information much like the brain works. First the brain gathers information, then processes it for understanding, and finally uses the information.

It is not necessary to advance in our thinking in a particular order. Thinking can begin at any level. For example, if you give students a problem to solve, they are beginning at Level III. A problematic situation is one of the best ways to get students excited about learning. When students are confronted with a problem (Level III), they have to gather information (Level I), process it (Level II), and then, return to the problem (Level III) to make a final decision.

Three-Story Intellect Overview (cont)

Steps for Using Three-Story Intellect to Differentiate

1. Pick the grade level objective you will be covering.

2. Decide upon the specific skills, concepts, or generalizations that need to be learned.

3. Use the verbs on the three-story intellect figure and the question stems below to write leveled activities/questions for students. These assignment sheets should connect the objective of the lesson with the specific skills, concepts or generalizations.

· English Language Learners – These learners will fall into all three categories below in the three-story intellect model. The key to success with these learners is to provide necessary vocabulary modifications and direct teacher instruction.

· Below Grade Level – Use the Level I verbs.

- How can you state this in your own words?

- What information do we need…?

- Where have you seen this before?

· On Grade Level – Use the Level II verbs.

- Compare this with…

- What does this tell us about…?

- How can we organize this data?

- What questions do you have about…?

· Above Grade Level – Use the Level III verbs.

- What do you predict about…?

- How would you evaluate…?

- Imagine you were there. What would you do?

4. Assess the students using classroom discussions, quizzes, tests, or journal entries. Use this as a pre-assessment to place students into ability groups for this objective.

Bloom’s Taxonomy / The Three Story Intellect
Taxonomic Level / Key Words
Creating
Generating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things
(Putting together ideas or elements to develop an original idea or engage in creative thinking). / Designing
Constructing
Planning
Producing
Inventing
Devising
Making
Building / Apply Information
Apply a principle
Evaluate
Forecast
Hypothesize
Imagine
Assess
Predict
Speculate
Judge
if/then
Idealize
Generalize
Evaluating
Justifying a decision or course of action
(Judging the value of ideas, materials and methods by developing and applying standards and criteria). / Checking
Hypothesizing
Critiquing
Experimenting
Judging
Testing
Detecting
Analyzing
Breaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationships
(Breaking information down into its component elements). / Comparing
Organizing
Deconstructing
Attributing
Outlining
Structuring
Integrating / Process Information
Analyze
Categorize
Compare/Contrast
Explain
Infer
Make Analogies
Sequence
Synthesize
Sort
Applying
Using information in another familiar situation
(Using strategies, concepts, principles and theories in new situations). / Implementing
Carrying out
Using
Executing
Doing
Understanding
Explaining ideas or concepts
(Understanding of given information). / Interpreting
Exemplifying
Summarizing
Inferring
Paraphrasing
Classifying
Comparing
Explaining
Remembering
Recalling specific information
(Recall or recognition of specific information). / Recognizing
Listing
Describing
Identifying
Retrieving
Naming
Locating/Finding / Gather Information
Count
Define
Match
Observe
Select
Describe
Identify
List
Observe
Name
Recite