“Technology is fluff; real learning takes place away from the computer.”
That perception persists in some quarters. As our curriculum and instruction team at the Santa Clara County Office of Education has been working on professional development training, we’ve been talking about ways to intertwine technology and higher level learning. I have to admit, some of the latest and greatest in technology has left us questioning just how much rigor is involved.
Image created by Mike Fisher; used by permission.
That got me to thinking about good old Bloom’s Taxonomy and how it might help us ensure rigor and relevance in our work in classrooms with students and by teachers. Pursuing those thoughts led me to the discovery of this picture—a visual representation of Bloom’s Taxonomy created by Mike Fisher that collects and categorizes the various internet resources that have become second nature to many of us in the world of Web2.0.
In our department, we utilize Bloom’s Taxonomy to focus our professional development workshop outcomes and to direct the activities that teachers work on with their students. The further up the taxonomy, the stronger the learning that should be taking place. We focus on analysis and evaluation, particularly around performance tasks, test questions, and even discussion points with classroom activities.
What is important about this diagram is the identification of internet tools that can drive both teacher and student users into higher order thinking. The categorization gives us a strong framework to plan instruction that takes advantage of new tools such as blogs, wikis, and VoiceThread that allow students to take their discussions and interactions to higher levels.
Tags: 21st century schools, Bloom's Taxonomy, HOTS, rigor
This is a great way to align the variety of Web 2.0 tools with pedagogical practices. For many resisters of technology integration, the visual taxonomy concretely shows specific tools to move students through Bloom’s. Perhaps one needs to be created where all educators can add tools that are not already existent on the one above?
Another great site that aligns researched instructional practices (Marzano) with technology is one from Jordan School District in Utah: http://t4.jordan.k12.ut.us/t4/content/view/189/38/
Great thoughts Lisa!