BLOOM'S TAXONOMY

Just a few years ago, I was a junior in high school, finally an upperclassmen, barely giving a flying hoo-hah about what the heck was going on in that 11th grade English course. When my professor finally put down his Shakespeare encyclopedia he'd been rambling from for the last hour, and turned on the projector, the whole class shifted, sat up straight, and prepared for the next portion of the class. I wasn't alone, no one in the room, except for kind Mr. Oliver, cared about a single word in that book, but as soon as the bulb in the projector lit up, so did the students. Suddenly, we were all ready to learn. We were expecting a movie.. instead we got a colorful triangle...?? This is the moment I was introduced to Bloom's Taxonomy.

While surfing through the 'Cult of Pedagogy' blog, I came across a couple blogposts that enhanced my understanding of Bloom's Taxonomy. 

The first, "To Boost Higher-Order Thinking, Try Curation" by Jennifer Gonzales, provides multiple examples of utilizing curation methods to integrate Bloom's Taxonomy into the classroom. The main idea of curation based learning, is allowing students to research, comprehend, collect, and analyze information on a specific topic, rather than providing students a list of terms and definitions to memorize. Enabling students to find the information for themselves, and further select which research is the best and most relevant to their topic, allows for integration of a few levels of Bloom's Taxonomy: Understand, Analyze, and Evaluate.

Also by Jennifer Gonazles, "Is Your Lesson a Grecian Urn?" questions the use of meaningless projects justified by school standards, and suggests a restructuring of the 'why' we teach what we teach. The 'Grecian urn' metaphor goes back to an anecdote from the author where her colleague had his class create papier-mache Grecian urns to learn about culture because learning about the world's diversity was a school standard. But when prompted to explain how this art project would enhance any optimal learning, her colleague had no response. Gonzales explains that this situation is far from rare, but if educators look towards their and their students end goals of projects, classrooms can begin to be filled with meaningful, thought-provoking activities.

I plan on taking this new knowledge and applying it to all aspects of my educational career as both a student and an educator. Having early foundations in Bloom's Taxonomy, I am eager to continue my search for educational greatness, and am excited to know that I am continuing to utilize information I was taught in high school.