We all probably remember studying Bloom’s Taxonomy in college and how it can be incorporated into our lesson plans. Benjamin Bloom created his taxonomy in the 1950s and we have been using his structure ever since to understand the learning process. In 2001, Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl revised the taxonomy and published Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy.
Andrew Churches, an educator in New Zealand, has done a great deal of writing about incorporating technology into Bloom’s Revised Technology. The blog Open Education explains, “Thanks to some great work by Andrew Churches, educators have a basis by which to compare digital techniques to the more traditional standard that Bloom created.”
For a much more in depth look at integrating technology into Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, visit Churches’ wiki Educational Origami. It is filled with resources for educators interested in Bloom’s Reivsed Taxonomy and 21st Century Learning.
I think if we understand Churches’ update on Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy and how technology can be used to bring students to higher order thinking skills then we can provide many of our teachers with effective ways to incorporate technology into their instruction. Here are some of the ways we have been using free technology in our school to help students reach each level of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy.
REMEMBERING: Recalling information or knowledge.
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UNDERSTANDING: Constructing Meaning
One of the best tools we have put in our students’ hands to help them reach the remembering and understanding level is Diigo. With the Diigo educator account you can create student accounts for you entire class, without the need for email addresses for the registration. Social bookmarking is a valuable tool to help students in recalling the vast amounts of information that is available to them. Bookmarking websites and resources to Diigo will allow students to retrieve information both quickly and effectively.
Social bookmarking tools such as Diigo can fall under the remembering level and the understanding level. Teaching students to comment and tag their resources helps them to construct meaning of the resource and will bring them to an understanding level. They are no longer just saving a website, but they are summarizing and classifying the resource for later use. It is important for our students to be able to understand, summarize, and classify the massive amounts of information they have access to.
APPLYING: Carrying out, running, or executing procedures.
The third step in the taxonomy is Applying which Andrew Churches would say is the level where students implement, use information, and execute tasks. A big aspect of this would be “Doing.” The great thing about the applying taxonomy level is the amount of options that we have available for our students. All six taxonomy levels have been significantly affected by Web 2.0 applications, but it is in this level that they really start to investigate how each tool can be used.
Examples of tools that students can use include Prezi, Glogster, Powerpoint, Skype, Google Apps, iPhoto, iMovie, Flickr, etc. There are a numerous amount of applications available to us, too numerous to list here. (Just browse through Richard’s blog, freetech4teachers.com, and you will find more tools than you could ever use in your classroom).
ANALYSING – Make connections, compare, organize, and present information that is collected.
Online applications such as Google Forms and Wordle provide our students with opportunities to analyze information instantly and in a uniquely visual way. Our 8th grade algebra class has used Google Forms to collect data related to homework performance and group project performances. Using the “Show summary of responses” feature provides an instant visual of the information that has been collected. In January, our junior high social studies compared President Obama’s State of the Union address to past presidents’ addresses by using Wordles of each president’s speech.
The final two steps of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy are very important because they give students an audience. It is an important part of developing the higher order thinking skills and providing the students with a more authentic learning experience.
EVALUATION – Making judgments, validate, reflect
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CREATING – The student, remembers, understands & applies knowledge, analysis and evaluates outcomes, results, successes and failures as well as processes to produce a final product
The most common way that I see our teachers reaching the evaluating level with our students is through blogging and Voicethread. Our teachers use Edublogs with their classes and each student has their own blog. They have the ability to publish posts as well as receive feedback on their writing in the form of comments. Publishing their writing to their student blog provides an authentic audience for the students. Blog commenting allows other students from around the world to make judgments, validate, and reflect on other students’ writing.
Voicethread has also been used for students to evaluate, all the way from @alhelmy’s preschool students up to our junior high students in @gilmorekendra’s music class. The examples are below from the preschool and junior high classes.
Finally, one of the best examples of the creating level that I have seen is students producing videos. Here is a video from @rlimback’s full-day Kindergarten class using a flip camera, iMovie, and uploaded to youtube:
Examining the verbs and activities in Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy can help our classrooms become student-centered, 21st century learning environments. My encouragement is to not look at which level will be most effective for students, but to look at the entire taxonomy and decide how this will be beneficial to you as the teacher. How can this taxonomy assist you with your instruction?
Kevin Creutz is an assistant principal at Zion Lutheran School in St. Charles, MO. In July, 2011 he will begin his new role as principal of Central Lutheran School in New Haven, IN. You can follow Kevin on twitter, on his blog Apply Today, or on the Connected Principals blog.
