Bloom’s Taxonomy

There isn’t a person alive in education who didn’t sit through the single lecture about Bloom’s taxonomy.  In fact, as I sit here, I just pulled down one of the books that I’ve retained from my teachers’ training.  “Psychology for Teaching: A Bear Always Usually Faces the Front” by Guy R. Lefrancois.  I don’t know if it’s still in print but it’s a definite keeper.

Over the years, people have tried to explain learning theory in a number of ways but we keep returning to the original or slightly modified theories based upon Bloom’s work.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dougbelshaw/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

With computers and technology, we have modern representations as well.

or we have an interactive Flash located here;

or a revised taxonomy here;

or digitally applied here;

or a whack of posters here;

or connections to a Web 2.0 world here.

Over the weekend, I read a blog entry from George Couros that was really put another focus on things for me.  Instead of communicating the concepts at the highest theoretical level, the various taxonomies were put in context of a simple pen.

I’m thinking of my own personal use for this approach.  At the Faculty of Education, I’m always trying to impress upon my students the need for looking past a computer activity or application to the deeper thinking and skills that go along with the activity.  In the classroom, so many lessons revolve around the technology and making it work with the students that you can easily lose the bigger picture of what it is that you’re attempting academically.

Just thinking out loud here, any software or activity should be analysed and held up to inspection like the humble pen in this blog entry.  Introduced properly, this may well be the way to take a closer and deeper look and everything that we do when using technology.