At the early part of last week we had the opportunity to briefly look at Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy of educational objectives.

Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification. Bloom's Taxonomy divides educational objectives into three areas; Affective, Psychomotor, and Cognitive. This taxonomy in particular is focuses on the fact that learning at higher levels of education is dependent on having attained previous knowledge and skills at lower levels (Orlich, et al. 2004). A goal of Bloom's Taxonomy is to motivate educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more comprehensive form of education. Wikipedia

Do you think that Bloom's Taxonomy is applicable to your concentration? How might you incorporate his taxonomy into your classroom or personal philosophy of education?

Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy does apply to my concentration of social studies. Teaching social studies to Elementary aged children can be challenging but if Blooms Taxonomy is incorporated, it may be easier to teach. Ofcourse teaching the lower levels of knowledge and comprehension through vocabulary words will provide a basis, but it is also important to use the upper levels of synthesis and evaluation. By using the upper levels of his taxonomy we can help in the development of critical thinking and processing, because I think all to often we don't encourage critical thinking as much as memorization. I can't wait to have my students create something from what they have learned in social studies and to apply what they have learned to real life settings. I will have my fifth graders create an informational book about the great state of North Carolina. They will have to apply what they have learned in class, as well as a little research on their on, and be creative. When they are finished they will hopefully be proud of this book and remember the important aspects of North Carolina because they have had to use critical thinking to put the information together.

Bloom's Taxonomy is very applicable to Physical Education. In the physical education practicum class all lesson plans are required to list four questions to be asked during each lesson and where they fit in according to Bloom's Taxonomy. The idea of course is to ask questions that require the use of critical thinking skills and practical application of knowledge. Here are some examples from a lesson plan in a weight lifting class for working your legs:

Q1: What are important safety issues we talked about with doing a squat? Knowledge

Q2: What are important reasons we shouldn’t ignore working our leg muscles? Comprehension

Q3: How can we apply type/specificity to our workouts and how might it change over time? Application

Q4: If our quadriceps are flexing, what are our hamstrings doing? Analysis

I agree with Johnathan. Every season or unit we prepare for our classes in Physical Education must cover the psychomotor, cognitive, affective domains. Along with those, each lesson must allow for students to progress at their own pace. Also, when we were in Pro-Blocks I-III, we attended teaching symposiums where we used Bloom's Taxonomy to ask higher order questions to the presenters.

After talking to a friend who teaches for Catawba County, I learned that she uses Marzano's levels of questioning, which is very similar to Bloom's taxonomy. We discussed the different ways of incorporating higher level questioning into the classroom and how it helps the students. By looking at several different types of questions students start to understand the topic. We also discussed turning the questioning over to the students and having them make up questions within each level of Bloom's taxonomy with regards to the topic. This will also enhance their learning.