PLC's are the Place to be!

• How will your knowledge about Bloom's taxonomy and Marzano's research affect your lesson planning?

In my current position I support teachers with planning in their PLC’s.  I could definitely see how during these meetings my knowledge and expertise could be utilized in helping teachers and supporting them with planning.  The biggest takeaway I would want to impart of my teachers is to think about the level of rigor using Bloom’s and then use Marzano’s strategies to support the learning.  Its really important for the two to align and support student learning.  Often times I think teachers see the strategies and what to implement them, but have not looked at how they can work in synergy while they are backwards planning.

• Are you currently implementing these concepts? If so, how could you improve or change them to be more effective? If not, what is your plan to begin implementing them?

A common misconception that I have come across while supporting teachers throughout the district is around how we define rigor.  Some teachers believe that increasing the complexity of the content increases the rigor while others see rigor as increasing student ownership of learning.  I think that its important when supporting instruction to help teachers define what rigor looks like in their classroom, but also to have a common definition.  I see Bloom’s Taxonomy as a segway to the conversation that will help teachers to determine how they push students to a deeper level in their classrooms and increase the cognitive demand.  In Denver Public Schools we use CLO’s or content language objectives for every one of our lessons.  The purpose of a CLO is to communicate to the students the objective and to be clear around the function, form, content and language domain that they will be using to show that they have met the objective.  Bloom’s verbs are a great tool for teacher to use while writing their CLO’s and thinking about function.  

• How could you share your new information with your colleagues to possibly enhance their teaching practice? What is the most important information you would want to share?

PLC’s are a great place to listen to others and hear what they are doing in their classrooms.  Some of the best ideas I have had have come out of having conversations with other teachers during common planning times. Its is an opportunity collaborate with colleagues and hear what is working in their classrooms.  PLC’s would be a perfect place to share my ideas around Marzano’s and Bloom’s.  If I were trying to introduce new ideas into the conversation during PLC’s I might bring student samples of work for my colleagues to analyze.  Having the data to back up a strategy is a great way to show others how it has been effective in your classroom.  Another strategy that I might try is to develop a planning tool that my team could use that would help us to plan for incorporating Bloom’s and Marzano’s strategies into our lessons.

Take care,

Erin