This activity is based on six thinking dice designed to match Bloom’s revised taxonomy. Each of these dice presents a level of knowledge through unfinished question structures:
The activity has two parts, involving asking and answering questions about a text the students are working on – either their own text, or someone else’s. Asking and answering questions teaches the students to understand the difference between various levels of thinking, as well as learning to develop a strategy for how to reflect on these levels.
The activity takes the students’ reflections to a meta-level because it deals with different ways of understanding thinking. In other words, the activity promotes High Order Thinking leading to Deep UnderstandinG – which is why it is popularly known as the HOT-DUG activity.
If you don’t have a set of thinking dice, you can use ordinary dice or an online Dice Roller. The six sides of the dice represent the six levels (described above). The students are given the handout referred to below, which helps them to draw up their questions.
The activity can be done in different ways, depending on whether the students are working on their own texts or whether the entire class is working on the same text. The sky is the limit for this activity.