Investigating Bloom's Taxonomy

Reflection

I have chose to reflect upon a lesson that I have already used last semester, which is also perhaps one of my most technologically involved lessons for a Spanish 2 class.  Basically students use what they have learned about two different verbs (ser and estar), vocabulary about school and schedules, and a short reading selection to create a virtual comic strip that summarizes the story they have read.

This lesson incorporates five of the six elements from Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, yet when using Digital Bloom’s Taxonomy it incorporates all six.  I found this interesting.  Using Bloom’s revised, students Remember by retrieving what the learned about ser and estar, they Evaluate by summarizing the story, they Apply learned grammar and vocabulary, they Analyze by deconstructing the story into comic frames, and they Create by planning, designing, and producing a comic strip.  The only element not addressed in Bloom’s revised is Evaluating because they do not hypothesize, critique, experiment, judge, or test anything.

However, if we are to take into account the new terminology incorporated into Digital Bloom’s Taxonomy, this lesson does incorporate Evaluating by posting a comic strip that they collaborated on. Through this paradigm the lesson I used addresses all necessary elements, although I admit it was slightly unintentional.

Needless to say, any teacher knows that no lesson is perfect and it can always be improved upon no matter how many times it has been delivered.  For this particular lesson, I could work on implementing more of the verbiage from both taxonomies.  For example, under Bloom’s revised I could perhaps break down the assignment into smaller, more precise steps to ensure more thorough exploration of each area. Namely, before creating the comic strip I could have students deconstruct the story and create an outline of it.  Or I could have students critique some of their peers’ comics in order for them to be more cognizant of common errors or incorrect uses of words.

As for Digital Bloom’s taxonomy, I can also think of some easy ways to address more of the elements absent from the original lesson.  For example, I could ask students to review others’ comics, and then post a blog about what they observed in general from other groups during the assignment.  From this one addition alone I was able to incorporate three elements previously absent from the original lesson.

Using these two taxonomies as a lens to view and evaluate lessons is always a fantastic idea and the biggest benefactor will always be the learner, while I become a better teacher at the same time.