6 Alternatives To Bloom's Taxonomy For Teachers - This post is updated from an article we published in April. At the end of the day, teaching is about learning, and learning is about understanding. And as technology evolves to empower more diverse and flexible assessments forms, constantly improving our sense of what understanding looks like–during mobile learning, during project-based learning, and in a flipped classroom–can not only improve learning outcomes, but just might be the secret to providing personalized learning for every learner. This content begs the question: why does one need alternatives to the established and entrenched Bloom’s? Because Bloom’s isn’t meant to be the alpha and the omega of framing instruction, learning, and assessment. So with apologies to Bloom (whose work we covered recently), we have gathered five alternatives to his legendary, world-beating taxonomy, from the TeachThought Simple Taxonomy, to work from Marzano to Fink, to the crew at Understanding by Design. Six Facets of Understanding with examples
Questioning based upon Bloom’s Taxonomy for the Cognitive Domain Questioning based upon Bloom’s Taxonomy for the Cognitive Domain In the mid-1950s, Bloom and coworkers describe three domains of learning: cognitive (about knowing) affective (about attitudes, feelings) psychomotor (about doing) Taxonomies for COGNITIVE and PSYCHOMOTOR domains were formulated and published by Bloom and coworkers in the 1950s. The remainder of these two pages summarizes the six levels of the COGNITIVE DOMAIN taxonomy, and includes verbs and question stems for each level. Finally, are these “levels” hierarchical? Goggle Bloom’s Taxonomy and you will be swamped with resources, many trivial and some that are excellent. Ask and STLF for more help.
How To Use Bloom’s Taxonomy To Write Learning Outcomes By: Scott Davis Business Analyst, Pearson It is often quite difficult to relate inputs to outcomes in the world of education. Traditionally, much work has been done to develop and provide inputs into the process of education. These inputs, such as a textbook, an assessment, a learning technology or platform, a course, a qualification, a high-stakes test or professional development for teachers are put into the hands of an educational leader, a skillful teacher, or an eager student. If we are going to really understand how we might be impacting student learning we must do two things. It may be difficult to know where to start in writing a student learning outcome. The committee identified three domains of educational activities or learning (Bloom, 1956): - Cognitive: mental skills (Knowledge) - Affective: growth in feelings or emotional areas (Attitude or self) - Psychomotor: manual or physical skills (Skills) Various researchers have summarized how to use Bloom’s Taxonomy. Bloom, B.
A Bloom's Digital Taxonomy For Evaluating Digital Tasks A Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy For Evaluating Digital Tasks by TeachThought Staff What makes Bloom’s Taxonomy such a power tool is its flexibility in framing almost anything–which is why you’ve been seeing a lot of it around lately, and will likely continue to. Whether you’re creating a checklist for instructional design, evaluating an assessment, skimming a favorite unit of yours, or using it as a walk-through instrument to get a feel for the level of student thinking in a classroom, Bloom’s Taxonomy is a powerful tool for any educator at any level. So the following Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy was was especially interesting in how it mashes digital tasks–podcasting, blogging, networking, hacking, bookmarking, social media sharing, and so on, with the stalwart learning tool so graciously delivered by Benjamin Bloom. The result is Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy, from edorigami’s excellent wikispaces site. One Takeaway
14 Bloom's Taxonomy Posters For Teachers 14 Brilliant Bloom’s Taxonomy Posters For Teachers by TeachThought Staff Bloom’s Taxonomy is a useful tool for assessment design, but using it only for that function is like using a race car to go to the grocery–a huge waste of potential. In an upcoming post we’re going to look at better use of Bloom’s taxonomy in the classroom, but during research for that post it became interesting how many variations there are of the original work. The follow simple, student-centered Bloom’s graphics were created by helloliteracy! The following “Bloom’s pinwheel” comes from Kelly Tenkley and ilearntechnology.com:
126 Bloom's Taxonomy Verbs For Digital Learning - by TeachThought Staff You can get a ready-for-the-classroom version of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy for $6.95. At TeachThought, we’re enthusiastic supporters of any learning taxonomy. Put simply, learning taxonomies help us think about how learning happens. This means that we can have taxonomies for differentiation and taxonomies for thinking and taxonomies for tasks and assessment–so many possibilities for examining the actual process of thinking, learning, and the application of each. This leads to cool visuals–Bloom’s Taxonomy posters, for example. It can lead to tools that help to design lessons, units, and assessments–Bloom’s Taxonomy power verbs work well here. And it can lead to further splintering of the concept, like this graphic that merges 21st century learning, modern digital and social spaces, and Bloom’s Taxonomy in one framework. The result is a tool that can help teachers think about the levels of higher-order thinking that go into these kinds of activities and projects.
Bloom’s Taxonomy & The iPad The iPad – A Device To… Create Despite Steve Jobs having declared the iPad as a device for consuming media, students at Zeeland Public Schools (ZPS) continue to create engaging papers, presentations and multi-media products to demonstrate their deep understanding of the curriculum. Pic Collage, Story Creator, Corkulous, Scribble Press, Videolicious, Educreations, Evernote, Haiku Deck, and iMotion HD are just a small sampling of the amazing apps students at every grade level are using to synthesize their understanding. Consume Not only are students creating on the iPad, but teachers are generating their own products for their classes to consume. Collaborate & Communicate Collaboration and communication go hand-in-hand, and the 1:1 technology initiative at ZPS fosters these skills. Critical Thinking Metacognition and critical thinking reach new heights as our teachers challenge learners to evaluate their own work, that of their peers, and even that of people in other countries.
Marzano's 9 Instructional Strategies In Infographic Form Marzano’s 9 Instructional Strategies In Infographic Form by TeachThought Staff In education, louder than the call for innovation, engagement, thought, or self-direction is the call to be research-based. In fact, being research-based may even trump being data-based, the two twins of modern ed reform. To be clear, being data or research-based isn’t anywhere close to fool-proof. But this is all way, way beside the point–a long-winded contextualizing for Robert Marzano’s work. And so Dr. Marzano’s 9 Instructional Strategies Identifying similarities and differencesSummarizing and note takingReinforcing effort and providing recognitionHomework and practiceNon-linguistic representationsCooperative learningSetting objectives and providing feedbackGenerating and testing hypothesesCues, questions, and advance organizers Marzano’s 9 Instructional Strategies In Infographic Form
Bloom’s Taxonomy Re-imagine & Digital Blooms: different ways to approach learning I’ve long been a fan of Bloom’s Taxonomy…not necessarily for all the ways it has been pushed into different fads throughout the years, but instead for the way that it helps me (and my students) think about the learning process. It helps me approach the learning process in a more holistic way, ensuring that I don’t camp out in one way of thinking and evidencing learning for too long. I think it is human nature to get excited about one way of thinking and suddenly everything we do falls into that. It can be a little bit like the new car that you purchased, you begin to see that car everywhere because you have a new awareness of it. I’ve noticed myself doing the same in teaching. A few years ago, I created some different versions of Bloom’s Taxonomy for my students. You will notice that my images don’t have the traditional Bloom’s pyramid. Are you looking for the full-size poster version of these images? And the digital version: Breakdown of the digital taxonomy with links: Remember: Apply:
Guide to Digital Writing « Voiceworks Getting Started Familiarise yourself with experimental online writing. The wackier, the weirder, the more exhilarating and genre-bending… the better! You can check out some of our favourite digital writing below: If you’re daunted by the prospect of developing a digital work on your own, consider collaborating with another writer/illustrator/technologist.Digital works come in all shapes and sizes, and the internet is full of inspirational examples of what is possible in interactive forms. If you find work doing something technical you haven’t seen before, make sure you bookmark it so you can refer to its code if necessary! The Big Questions Why is an experimental, online platform the best home for your work? Drafting, Coding and Pitching If you are unsure of how best to code your work (or even what that means), don’t hold back from pitching us tangible ideas that we can help bring to the surface! Submitting Your Work Proofread!
Take Action: Verbs That Define Bloom’s Taxonomy Bloom’s Taxonomy gets an active makeover in this infographic, which provides a way to think about how the actions involved in a class assignment might be categorized in the schema. Mia MacMeekin made this and many other interesting infographics, which can be found on her website, An Ethical Island. Check out the original link to the infographic. Katrina Schwartz Katrina Schwartz is a journalist based in San Francisco. A Very Good Checklist for Assessing 21st Century Learning Skills January 29, 2015 Here is another great resource from Dr. Jackie Gerstein, one of our favourite EdTech bloggers. Jackie designed this beautiful chart featuring 12 attributes and skills that teachers should tend to in their instruction. You can use it as a self-assessment checklist to help you evaluate your teaching practice. What I like the most about this chart is the fact that it emphasizes the social and affective component in learning, something which is often overlooked in today’s digitally-focused learning paradigms. These mechanical skill-based and market-oriented paradigms reduce students to ‘cheerful robots’ and view pedagogy as ‘merely a skill, technique, or disinterested method’ to teach pre specified subject matter' (Giroux, 2011). Jackie's set of attributes featured in this chart chime in with Giroux's view of education as a way of producing citizens who are 'critical, self-reflective, knowledgeable and willing to make moral judgements and act in a socially responsible way.'