NUTS & BOLTS

 A student learning assessment newsletter serving Springfield College and Benedictine University

Using Bloom's Taxonomy - 2

Planning for a 'progression of learning' in the classroom from rote memory to analysis and creativity

Editor's note. Second of a two-part series on Bloom's Taxonomy, a classification of learning behaviors commonly used by K-12 teachers, in planning lessons, assignments and assessment techniques in a college course. The first, which ran in December, focused on using Bloom to draw up syllabuses and plan courses. This month's will focus on reflecting mission statement day-to-day classroom teaching.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in to comment on last month's newsletter explaining Bloom's Taxonomy, which sets out a hierarchy of learning tasks or behaviors. When you write for the public, even an internal public like faculty at Springfield College and Benedictine, you never know if anybody out there is paying attention. (It's a lot like teaching.) So getting reader comments was like a real Christmas present!

One was from Pat Giacomini, who chairs our behavioral science division and also teaches at St. John's School of Nursing. One technique she's used is include "a certain percentage of questions at each taxonomy level" when she's making out tests. "Of course, at the Junior and Senior year ... most questions were beyond remembering and understanding and most were at the level of 'analyze' and 'evaluate,'" she added. "It does allow instructors to think about a progression of learning."

First, a word of review: Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy, a system for classifying learning behaviors in the cognitive domain, came out in 1956 and was revised in 2001 by L.W. Anderson and D.R. Krathwohl. It is usually represented visually as a pyramid with basic, or "lower-order" skills at the bottom and more complex, or "higher-order," skills toward the top. They are:

Remembering:  At the bottom of the pyramid, called Knowledge in Bloom's 1956 and still so identified in much of the literature. It consists of retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long-term memory.

Understanding: The next lowest rung of the pyramid, called Comprehension in 1956. Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining.

Applying: Third from the bottom, called Application in 1956. Carrying out or using a procedure through executing, or implementing.

Analyzing: Third from the top, sometimes considered the first of the higher-order skills, called Analysis in 1956. Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and attributing.

Evaluating: Next to the top, called Synthesis in 1956. Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing.

Creating: The highest, or most complex, of the higher-order skills, called Evaluation in 1956. Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing.

The basic idea is to choose classroom activities that will reinforce the information a student learns and lock it in (my term) by using the related cognitive skills. For example, we might introduce a concept in a reading assignment, explain its use in a brief lecture and set up a classroom exercise in which students analyze it. So when our science students dissected "Fluffy" the pickled cat across the hall from my classroom in years past, I tried to ignore the smell and remember they were utilizing their analytical skills in the cognitive domain. Similarly, when math students learn a formula and work problems using it, they're moving up Bloom's pyramid from remembering to applying the formula.

Well, OK, fine. We've all been doing that since fifth grade. But what does that have to do with mission?

Well, at Springfield College we align the goals and objectives -- the things we want our students to learn -- in our courses with a set of collegewide Common Student Objectives that derive from our mission statement. These campuswide learning objectives -- "CSLOs" if you like pedagogical acronyms or alphabet soup -- are outlined on our website. And the way they relate to our mission statement is explained in a report on the workshop where we identified them. Basically, our mission statement stresses using the liberal arts to prepare students for "a life of learning, leadership and service in a diverse world."  So the upshot is we have CSLOs that derive from our mission statement incorporated in our syllabuses. And there, all too often, they sit. At least in my classes.

But it is possible to take the mission statement and design day-to-day exercises to bring it into the classroom. Here's an example that comes to mind as I'm beginning to prep courses for the coming semester.

In Humanities 221, my interdisciplinary course on Native American cultural expressions, one of my course-based learning objectives is for students to explain how Native cultures adapt to "new languages, artistic media and social conditions." Another learning objective is for the students to "[e]valuate the esthetic merit of specific Native American expressions of practice, music, dance, visual arts, crafts and literature." Notice the verbs? Explain. Evaluate. Straight from Bloom. In my HUM 221 syllabus, these objectives are related in turn to common, or campuswide learning objectives for content knowledge, or learning, and "diversity of opinion, abilities and cultures" derived from the mission statement. And I have other language in the syllabus relating to "self-reflection" and "critical thinking" that also derives from the mission statement. All this may sound kind of mechanical, but I find it helps keep me on track.

I teach in a computer lab, so last year I posted to the class blog an an in-class reading and discussion assignment that called for students to read a webpage about Aleut (Unangan) painting and sculpture and post their response to the art depicted; they had already read up on the culture, so thy were applying some of that information, and in framing their responses I wanted them to evaluate the art. I've never been able to use Bloom's terminology very successfully with students -- although I think Anderson's and Krathwohl's language might be less opaque than Bloom's original pedagese, which has a way of sailing right over our heads in class -- so Bloom is not directly quoted in the blog. But my intention was to engage the students in an aesthetic response to Alaska Native art, which relates to our liberal arts mission in a diverse world. At the same time, I wanted to them to move up Bloom's pyramid to some of the higher-order skills.

Last year's student posts to the blog served as a very informal assessment measure, when I posted a general comment encouraging some student responses and modeling others. And the posts help me in planning for this year's classes. I want to visit the same websites this year, but I intend to sharpen the question a little and ask about non-traditional elements in the art. One of the pictures shows a float plane, for example, and another appears to be a logo for the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, a corporation formed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. That, I hope, will relate details of the assignment a little more clearly to the course content about artistic adaptation to new media and social conditions.

None of this is rocket science, at least not the way I teach. Sometimes in the classroom, I'm not even sure of where we are on Bloom's hierarchy of cognitive skills. But I've found that at least being aware of them helps the class discussion along. And it helps me keep on track.

Assessment website

At a recent meeting of the Assessment Committee, I was embarrassed to learn some members of the committee didn't know we had a website. How could there be a better indication that somewhere in our process of planning for continuous improvement, we might take a look at the website? So, here are some questions for readers. Is there something we can do to make the website more useful? Is there, perhaps, something we can do to make it more inviting? And not just to faculty. What can we do to make assessment come alive for students? It's about student learning, remember. Anyway, our student member Justin White volunteered to work with the assessment website. So you're invited to visit at http://www.sci.edu/comm_arts/assessment/ and take a look around. Tell us what you think. How can we better serve you? How can we better serve our students?

-- Pete Ellertsen, chair, assessment committee

Nuts &  Bolts is an electronic newsletter published by SCI's Assessment Committee. Faculty members are: Wayne Burrows, Brian Carrigan, Molly Finley, Dave Holland, Tom Jackson, Darlene Snyder and Pete Ellertsen (chair). Kevin Broeckling, dean of students; Michael Bromberg, academic affairs dean, and Joanna Beth Tweedy, resource center director, serve ex officio. Student member is Justin White. If you have information, comments or feedback, please contact any committee member or Nuts & Bolts editor Pete Ellertsen, in 211 Beata Hall on the SCI/Benedictine campus, 525-1420 ext. 519 or by e-mail at <pellertsen@sci.edu>.