Using The Ideas Of Bloom And Marzano In My Teaching

    In the next year of teaching, I plan to use my knowledge of Bloom’s taxonomy and Marzano’s research to facilitate my lesson planning.  In every lesson, I will make sure to include (or build up to) higher level Bloom ideas, and to incorporate at least one of Marzano’s strategies.  I found that, while coming up with strategies for each level of Blooms while incorporating Marzano in the last activity, I often had to modify and add to my ideas to include both, and the outcome was a much stronger lesson than the original idea.  Therefore, using these ideas in my planning will strengthen the lessons I create.  
    I am currently implementing some of these concepts, but I am not doing it purposefully and thoughtfully.  I work on most of Marzano’s strategies in my classroom, but do not think about which strategy I am using and how it fits into the overall research of Marzano on best classroom practices.  I also have students use the different levels of Blooms, but not consciously, and I do not always use the levels of Blooms in order.  In the next year, I want to make a conscious effort to include  these strategies into my everyday teaching by posting a copy of each next to my desk, and referencing it as I plan to make sure I include the vocabulary and concepts.  I also want to focus on including more technology, and therefore using the stages of digital Blooms.    
    I can share my information with my colleagues by giving them copies of Bloom’s taxonomy and Marzano’s research strategies,  and walking them through the different parts of both.  We can then discuss lesson ideas and strategies for each one, and take a current lesson and look at how it already includes the strategies, and what can be adjusted to incorporate Bloom and Marzano further.  For digital Bloooms, I can then show them my examples of lessons that involve each stage of digital Blooms and include Marzano strategies, and we can then discuss how to adjust a current lesson of theirs to include digital  Blooms.  I believe the most important information to share with colleagues is how to use this information in their own lessons.  It is important that they understand Marzano and Bloom, but they need to know why it is relevant to their teaching, and how they can painlessly incorporate these strategies into their lessons.  That is why the majority of my conversation would focus on strategies for the classroom.