Investigating Bloom's Taxonomy

Investigating Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy Vs. Digital Bloom’s Taxonomy

One idea that I would consider adding to the Bloom’s taxonomy is the idea of asking students to prove or justify their answer.  This is something we have started to incorporate in our constructed responses for math.  It asks students to reach that higher level thinking by having to prove that their thinking or answer is correct. This includes the idea of justifying their answer and explaining why other answers would not work. By asking students to prove their thinking, you are asking them to reach a deeper depth of knowledge.

Lesson Idea

A lesson that I just taught the other day asks kids to think about and work through story problems that involve dividing by fractions.  This lesson connects to the essential question, how do you divide fractions?  By the end of the lesson, students will be able to solve division problems that involve fractions and discuss the steps and strategies used.  The students have been working on the steps for dividing fractions and we have started to talk about how to apply this skill to word problems.  In the original lesson, I put the story problem up on the document camera.

Story Problem: You have ¾ of a pumpkin pie remaining. You divide the pie into 6 equal slices.  What fraction of the original pie is each slice?   

The kids worked with a partner or small group to solve the problem and then share their answers with the class.  As a class, we have a discussion about the problem, the steps that the students had taken, and their math thinking.  In the current lesson format, the students are working on applying what they know about dividing fractions and solving story problems.  They are asked to collaborate with a peer or peers.  As it is, the lesson does not include a technology component.

As I look at the revised Bloom’s and the Digital Bloom’s I would make some changes to the lesson discussed above.  To begin with, I would ask students to spend more time collaborating on the story problem in small groups.  As students work through the problem, I would ask that they create a model that would help others to think about and solve the problem.  Or a model that represents and connects to their thinking.  By asking them to create a model, I am deepening the student’s thinking by increasing their level of thinking and the depth of knowledge.  This moves the lesson up to the creating level of the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy.

I would like to incorporate a higher level of the Digital Bloom’s by incorporating a technology component to the lesson.  In the original lesson, the students present their thinking to the class through an oral presentation.  Instead of students collaborating on an oral presentation, I would like students to create an Educreations or Show Me presentation using the iPads on how the story problem was solved and how the students used a model to express their thinking.  Students can then share their presentations in small groups, educating other students on how to solve division story problems and how the group used a model to explain their thinking.  I could expand on this idea with later lessons by giving students slightly different story problems and having them teach their peers how the problems would be solved.  Students will have to use a higher level of thinking to determine what information will be shared and how to effectively share the information in an Educreations presentation in order to teach others the math.    

References

Churches, A.  (2014).  “Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy”.  Educational Origami.  Retrieved from:

http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Bloom%27s+Digital+Taxonomy

Overbaugh, R and Schultz, L.  (no date).  “Bloom’s Taxonomy”.  Old Dominion University.  

Retrieved from: http://ww2.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm