Write out the updated Bloom's Taxonomy of skills on a piece of paper and keep it in front of you when planning lesson assignments. Having it visible will remind you to avoid remembering, understanding and applying questions for the students to do and to move on to analyzing, evaluating and creating.
Discuss the idea of critical thinking with your students. Explain that you want to develop their critical thinking skills and that is why you have moved away from lesson assignments where all they have to do is regurgitate information and demonstrate they understand a basic concept.
Use a combination of individual and group lesson assignments. The individual assignments will let you assess how each student is doing in terms of critical thinking. Team up weaker students with stronger ones to help kick-start their abilities to use higher-level skills for lesson assignments.
Assign the students activities that require action for the analysis level, such as designing a questionnaire for information gathering, making a family tree or constructing a graph illustrating selected information.
Give the students lesson assignments whereby they have to evaluate. Specific lesson assignments could be activities such as preparing a criteria list for judging an art exhibit or having a panel discussion about the ethical issues of being a student.
Instruct the students to create or design something to demonstrate the most advanced level of critical thinking. Possible lesson assignments include designing a cover for a magazine or CD cover, or writing a play.