The Australian Curriculum is designed to help all young Australians to become successful learners, confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens. Cognitive verbs can be identified across each of the three dimensions of the Australian Curriculum, and signal to students the type of mental operations they are to use when demonstrating what they know, understand and can do.
The cognitive verb resources support teachers in the explicit teaching of thinking. Cognitive verbs are categorised using Marzano & Kendall’s four levels of cognitive process: retrieval, comprehension, analysis and knowledge utilisation (2007). A full list of common cognitive verbs can be found in Categories of common cognitive verbs.
The following sections contain links to advice and resources to support planning for cognitive verbs.
Note: These cognitive verb resources are for use with the P–10 Australian Curriculum. The cognitive verb glossaries for Years 11–12 students are available under the Teaching tab for each of the senior subjects.
Analyse
Apply
Compare
Describe
Develop
Evaluate
Examine
Explain
Identify
Infer
Interpret
Make decisions
Represent
Select
- Last updated:
- 3 April 2024
