Bloom's Taxonomy & Digital Bloom's

In my writing lesson in our “How-to” unit, I think I do a pretty good job at integrating Bloom’s Taxonomy into my lessons, including the highest level of creating. I allow my students to create and plan their own how-to books throughout the unit. They can choose their own topic, plan their book using a draft paper, and create their how-to book using pre-printed pages with only lines. As students create a new book, they are challenged to improve their writing by adding more details and more steps to the process. The one higher level thinking skill that I need to integrate into my lessons is evaluation. I do not have a process for my first graders to evaluate their book or others. I evaluate their books myself as they are completing them and after they are done. I do allow students to read their completed book to the class if they choose but we all clap when they are done to show our support. I think showing students examples of work that others have done and discussing what they see can help them improve their creation and final project. Students are taught to check their writing for capitals and periods. I sometimes have to remind students to check their writing before coming to me to show me their finished work. Creating a kid-friendly rubric can also help in this process and allow me to conference with students when they complete their book.

After completing this assignment, I realize that I do not integrate much of Digital Bloom’s Taxonomy in my lesson for my students. Honestly, I was not aware there was a digital version of Bloom’s Taxonomy until this assignment. I think integrating my classroom computers into the creation of the how-to books (letting students type their text) would be beneficial because it allows students to practice their computer skills as well as creating a different type of book (not pencil and paper). I can find examples of how-to books on the computer and display them on my Promethean board for us to analyze and evaluate. We can make comparison charts of the information we found. I think the application process for my first graders would be the most important part because they would have to draw from their memory information about computers to create a book as well as remember what a how-to book incorporated and transfer that knowledge to the computer.

I think remembering to integrate technology into my lessons for me to teach with as well as for students to use in their assignments will help all of us practice using the Digital Bloom’s Taxonomy regularly. Regular use will improve the level of thinking skills that students use.