Opening Transcript

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Opening Transcript

RBT Module

Opening Introduction

Welcome to the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy module featuring Dr. Lorin Anderson, author ofRevised Bloom’s Taxonomy

The purpose of this module is to provide an overview of the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy which is a common framework with a common vocabulary that can be used to think and talk about standards. With a common framework and a common language, a shared understanding of standards among educators is more likely.

Looking Through a New Lens

It is a fundamental truth that we don’t see the world as it is, we see the world through the lens by which we look at it. Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy provides a new lens by which education should be viewed. From 2008-2011, The North Carolina Essential Standards were developed, based upon the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy(RBT). During the course of 2008-2011, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction worked closely with Dr. Lorin Anderson, co-author ofRevised Bloom’s Taxonomyand a student of Dr. Benjamin Bloom, to ensure that our new standards were written accurately and with fidelity. Lorin W. Anderson is a Carolina Distinguished Professor of Education Emeritus at the University of South Carolina, where he has served on the faculty for 27 years.

How Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy Can Help You

The Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy was chosen because it has well-defined verbs and is built on modern cognitive research along with dimensions of knowledge.The North Carolina Essential Standards for Science, Social Studies, Healthful Living, Arts, World Languages, Guidance, Career and Technical Education, Information and Technology Skills, the Occupational Course of Study, and the Extended Content Standards are built upon the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Module Expectations

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• Compare the Original Bloom’s and Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy
• Explain the Cognitive verbs and how they can be used in classroom instruction and learning
• Understand how Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy supports and assesses student learning

Revised Bloom's Taxonomy Transcript

Revised Bloom's Taxonomy Transcript

Pre-Assessment and Reflection Activity

Before we begin the first segment of the module, let’s pause and complete the KWL activity. The KWL activity is a chart that records what you already know, what you would like to know, and what you learned about a certain topic. Please download the chart and complete the first two columns with what you already know about Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy and what you would like to know about Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy. The last column will be completed later in the module.

Download theKWL-chart.

Group Activity

As a group, discuss the first two columns of your KWL chart. What similar information did your group already know about Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy? Next, discuss the responses from the “want to know” column. What similarities are identified? Once you have accomplished this as a group, save your KWL charts, as you will come back together with your group to discuss the final column.Press continue to proceed throughout the module.

Bloom's Taxonomy

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy serves as a conceptual frameworkor lens by which our descriptions of educational programs and experiences could be oriented. Using Revised Bloom's Taxonomy can help you better understand the standards that define the state curriculum and increase the alignment of standards, instruction and assessment. It furnishes a framework for the development of educational theories and research, and it furnishes the schemata needed for training teachers and orienting them to the varied possibilities of education.

History of Revised Bloom's

Original Bloom’s Taxonomy was part of a long history of attempts to classify educational standards and objectives. In 1949, the process of writing the Original Bloom’s Taxonomy began. In 1956, Original Bloom’s Taxonomy was published. From 1956-1995, about 20 different classification systems were developed from Bloom’s taxonomy. Many educators in North Carolina are familiar with classifications such as Marzano’s Taxonomy, Habits of Mind by Art Costas, or Webb’s Depth of Knowledge.

In November 1996, Dr. Lorin Anderson and David Krathwol led the efforts to revise Blooms Taxonomy, designed by Dr. Benjamin Bloom. This effort involved cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists, teacher educators, and measurement and assessment specialists. The group met twice a year for four years. In 2000, the draft ofRevised Bloom’s Taxonomywas completed. The first text was published in 2001. The first two books were provided for teacher practitioners and academicians.

Learning Outcomes Occur

Learning outcomes and increased student achievement are met when there is a purposeful process that pays close attention to the content and student cognitive type and aligns with what is written, what is taught, and what is assessed. The Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy is such a process.Mouse over each component of the process for more details.

Importance of Alignment

How a teacher understands a particular standard may not be the same as the understanding of those who wrote the standards. Often, teachers themselves disagree as to the meaning of a particular standard. Furthermore, because of these differences in understanding, it is quite possible that the instructional strategies and classroom assessment methods used by teachers are inconsistent with the intended meaning of the standard. In the language of the curriculum specialist or test developer, this inconsistency is known as a misalignment. The Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy provides a process for teachers to organize the mandated standards and objectives andwill be used as a guide, with state assessment developers, to ensure that the state level assessments align with standards and objectives.

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Helping Students See the Alignment in Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy

Lindsey Criss: In my classroom, I decided that the students really needed to understand the RBT model. So they could understand how they were going to be instructed was how they were going to be learning and how they were going to be assessed and that alignment really helped them. For example in accounting, I always struggled before the new RBT model to help them understand how they were going to be assessed. I did a lot of applying knowledge in that class and then they were being assessed with simple questions on a simple level and that was always frustrating to them when they got to the assessment level when they saw the item banks that were released through the system that they weren’t the same questions They weren’t applying any knowledge to the questions. Now with the new model, you can have them learn at the higher levels and have them even in Accounting II, analyze the information that they’re learning and have them be able to answer questions about what they’re analyzing. Those higher levels are giving them a deeper understanding of knowledge for them because they know that they have to completely understand different levels of the work. And being able to do things like apply procedures or analyze information especially in accounting, that’s a real world example right there. That’s what they do when they get out of college and start to work in an accounting firm or start to work in finance and having them to be able to be assessed like that has been a lot easier for them and they’re not as nervous about being assessed.

A Shared Responsibility

Student achievement is a shared responsibility between the Department of Public Instruction, the local school district, and the classroom teacher. Let’s take a minute to think about who are responsible for student achievement. With your group or PLC, take a moment and discuss the following questions. Write your responses on a large group chart or in a Word document that is visible to the entire group.

Now that your group has identified what the roles of the state, the local school district, and the classroom teacher are in increasing student expectations, compare your responses with the following.

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Thinking Differently about the Way Students Learn

Lindsey Criss: Teachers should think differently about the RBT model and how they’re going to present information because it’s not as much memorizing facts as it is learning how to use the facts and relate them to real life and relate them, especially in CTE classes, we see relating to real world issues or real world scenarios. And using RBT model in my class has helped to do that a little more naturally with the kids.

Changes in Student Learning

It ended up to be a lot of group projects, a lot of partnering with other students. They had to really interact with not only me but each other. Instead of having a lot of assignments where they sit and do memorization assignments or get information directly from one source, it allowed them to be able to ask questions and stimulate their own learning really and ask a lot of different questions and it wasn’t about “how do I do this?” It was more about the assignment and “how does this happen in the real world?” and “Is this something we can use once we leave high school?”

Exploring Standards Transcript

Exploring Standards Transcript

Three Problems with Early Standards

For decades, there have been recurring sentiments about early standards:

First, there were too many standards given the time teachers have available to teach them and students have to learn and apply them.

Second, there was a wide range of standards in terms of their specificity. Some content areas were very general, while others were quite specific and provided a level of examples.

Lastly, some standards, particularly those written at a more general level, often proved to be ambiguous and/or confusing. That is, different people interpreted them in different ways.

Rigorous educational standards have been and are strongly advocated by many facets of our society.

We are discussing an alternate article, “Creating Instructional Program Coherence” by Diana Oxley, that will serve as an excellent lead into the Common Instructional Framework. In your PLC groups, participants will share their individual reflections from their handouts and summarize a group response on chart paper. PLC groups should be prepared to report out to whole group at designated time (as determined by principals).

Print and read the articleEducational Standards: To Standardize or To Customize Learningby Charles M. Reigeluth. Highlight sentences that you feel are critical, and discuss with others in your group or learning community.

What Makes a Standard Essential?

The concept of “essential standards” was introduced in an attempt to solve that of too many standards to teach in too little time. There are three main criteria that all educators agree must be met for a standard to be considered an essential standard.

First, the standard must demonstrate endurance. This means the knowledge and understanding a student learns from an essential standard must endure, or last, beyond a test or class. The understanding from an essential standard should help students make connections throughout his or her college, career, and life.

Second, an essential standard must have leverage. In other words, the knowledge and understanding a student learns from an essential standard should have wide applications and connections across other concepts and content.

Lastly, an essential standard must be written clearly, taught effectively, and assessed in alignment with the instruction so that it increases a student’s readiness for success in the next grade and level of instruction.

Introducing Dr. Anderson Transcript

Introducing Dr. Anderson Transcript

Introducing Dr. Lorin Anderson, Professor Emeritus, University of South Carolina

Hello, my name is Lorin Anderson. I am the Professor Emeritus of education at the University of South Carolina, and I'm here to talk to you about the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, what it really is, and why it's important for people who are working in the field of education. All right, before we begin this exploration, I’d like each of you to think of a subject area that you teach to a group the students. For example you might teach fifth grade reading; you might teach secondary math; you might teach fine arts; it doesn’t really make any difference. And then I want you to write one objective for that subject area and the students that you selected. And your objective should be what you believe to be the most important thing that the students should learn. You only have one choice; if there’s one thing you want students to learn in this course or in this subject area at that grade level, what would it be? I want you to turn off or stop the video at this point in time and take about three or four minutes for everybody to do this.

USE THE JOURNAL TO RECORD YOUR OBJECTIVE

A Common Format

Alright, now we will begin really the formal exploration of objectives and the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy. It turns out that all objectives have a common format, and you should be seeing this as you look at what you've written a few minutes ago. The subject/verb/object format: I came out of an education system where diagramming sentences was very important, and so I still look at the structure of everything that I do. We abbreviate it as SVO: the subject, the verb, and the object. The subject is the learner or the student, so we'll start by saying something like “the student will,” “the student will be able to,” “the student should,” “the student should be able to” or “the learner will be able to,” “the learner will” and so forth, and in many elementary schools this is just ingrained in teachers, so you'll see on the board things like TLW: the learner will and BAT: be able to. That will be the introduction to many of the objectives you see written on the board, and that basically covers the subject of the objective.

Original and Revised Bloom

The original Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives was intended to classify the verbs—the V part of the SVO. Knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation—for most people who have studied in education this is going to become the mantra that they are taught about the Bloom’s taxonomy. It turns out, as Bloom himself once said, that the actual book in which you'll find this,The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives,is one of the most frequently cited, least read books in American education. Everybody knows this pyramid, but few people know the book from which it came and what these things actually mean. Notice that I said previously that the taxonomy initially was originally intended to classify the verbs, but notice that these are in noun forms—knowledge, comprehension, and so forth. They really should be know, comprehend, apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluatebecause that's where it fits within the overall scheme of things. They’re attempts to classify the verb. So as we revised the taxonomy, we decided to shift form from the noun form to the verb form. You'll see that in little bit. The other thing you’ll notice is this pyramid indicates another factor inherent in the original taxonomy. Namely, that the authors of that volume believed that knowledge was a prerequisite to comprehension; comprehension was a prerequisite for application, and all the way up. And so what happened in a lot of cases is people filled their curriculum with knowledge and then built on the knowledge to move to comprehension and so forth. Well from a practical point of view, what's going to happen eventually is you’re going to run out of time. In other words if you have a lot of knowledge and you have a little amount of time, you rarely get up to analysis and synthesis and evaluation before the time allocated to a particular subject or course runs out.

And this really summarizes what I just said. The words that they use this category labels were written as nouns rather than as verbs and so we decided to rewrite the categories as verbs and we made a few changes as we went through it. There you see the original, and the arrow indicates really the pyramid that we just saw. But it's assumed that we’re building from knowledge up through evaluation. The Revised Bloom we have to start moving these over, and we have to figure out what to call these things. We could've obviously called knowledge “know” (K-N-O-W) but we didn't. We called it what it really is. We want kids to remember things. That's what the original taxonomy group meant by knowledge, “to remember things exactly the way they were presented to the students” whether the presentation was by a teacher or a student. Comprehension, we could have gone with comprehend, but we didn't. We went to understand, because understand is one of those things that is an important objective in education. We want kids to able to understand things; to make sense of things. When kids say “I don't get it,” they don't mean “I don't remember it” they mean “I don't understand it.” When they say, “I really am struggling with something,” they don’t say, “I’m struggling to remember it,” they say, “I'm struggling to understand it.” When a student jumps up in a classroom and says, “That makes no sense!” that doesn't mean they don't remember it; it means they don't understand it. So understanding replaces comprehension.