Imagining a New Bloom's

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the uses and mis-uses of Bloom’s Taxonomy, that trusted framework of teaching referenced by just about every teacher on god’s green earth. Briefly, people see the pyramid and they think- “Oh, more rigorous is higher up… I should ask all “higher order questions.” I should avoid being the teacher who asks “lower order” (i.e. lesser) questions that merely reinforce knowledge or even (whisper it so no one hears!): facts.

Unfortunately this flies in the face of what cognitive science tells us–that there is no high order thinking without knowledge and that teaching and retrieval practice of “mere facts” are actually hugely important. Conveniently, this appears to be exactly what Bloom himself believed.

“The categories were presented,” according to Vanderbilt’s Center for Teaching, “with the understanding that knowledge was the necessary precondition for putting these skills and abilities into practice.”

To read this full post vist: http://teachlikeachampion.com/blog/imagining-new-blooms/