Bloom's Taxonomy

Bloom's Taxonomy is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot when studying Education. At this point, I am tempted to get it branded on my forehead simply for posterity's sake. All joking aside, the reason I can't go to an Education class without hearing about Bloom's Taxonomy is because it holds merit. Encouraging students to flex their higher-order thinking skills and operate near the top of the taxonomy should be any teacher's goal. As an English teacher, I want my students to write. I want them to read a text and hypothesize why a character is doing what they do and what message may the author be trying to convey by making the character do that? I want my students to craft prose and illustrate their ideas through words. I want my students to collaborate and create writing works where they examine whether their narrative was told or shown and which would be best for that particular section?

However, I was also taught that you cannot demand your students to operate in the top of the taxonomy all the time. That's a sure-fire way to exhaust your students. I believe a combination of low and high order thinking skills should be practiced to create a balanced learning environment. A good way of guiding myself towards that balance is by using Bloom's Verbs for Critical Thinking when creating learning goals for my students.

Source: Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment

These words help translate Bloom's Taxonomy into verbs that are more familiar and attainable for students. Rather than being told to understand George Orwell's Animal Farm, students are given more direction when told to describe how the pigs' behavior differs in the beginning of the book from their behavior in the end.

I think through the use of technology, the "create" level is easier than ever for students to reach. There is a plethora of websites that allows students to be creative and visually demonstrate their thinking. Examples include websites such as Prezi for presentations, Powtoon for cartoons, and even TextAdventures for video games. The possibilities are as infinitely expanding as the internet itself.