In this journal you need to think about your Cegep/University professors: the ones you consider to be very good professors and ones you think are less good.
Think about what teaching strategies did they use? Did they stand in front of the class and lecture? Did they ask you to memorize facts? Did they assign tasks that required you to work together with classmates to solve a problem? Did they ask you to analyze a situation or reflect on your findings? The different strategies that were used by your profs to help you learn required you to use different cognitive skills.
Cognitively, it is much easier to memorize information than to solve a problem.
Dr. Benjamin Bloom developed a taxonomy (a classification system) of cognitive process. The taxonomy has six levels. The first three elements—Remember, Understand, and Apply—represent lower levels of cognition and learning, while Analyse, Evaluate, and Create are considered higher-order skills.
At the lowest level of the taxonomy, which Bloom titled “remember” one is required to recall previously learned information. So, if a teacher asked you: What is the capital of Canada? or What happens when you mix the colors red and blue, the teacher was using the lower level of Bloom’s taxonomy. If your teachers asked you to explain a text in your own words, it was a way for her/him to make sure you understood the text. In Bloom’s taxonomy it is the second level, “understand”.
So, if your science teacher had a unit on “viruses” where he/she taught you everything that you needed to know about viruses and at the end of the unit asked you to create a pamphlet on viruses, she/he were focusing on the higher cognitive skills because the task required you to analyze and evaluate the lesson in order to select what is important and create the pamphlet.
Part 1:
View the slidecast entitled Bloom’s Taxonomy in Lesson 3: Learning and Pedagogy In Interactive Classrooms. You may also refer to the following link with more information on Bloom’s taxonomy: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/
Reflect: Reflect on your own learning experiences as a Cegep/University student and describe a lesson or more when your professeurs focused on using the lower levels of Bloom’s taxonomy (remember, understand, apply) when teaching a lesson and describe situations (or more) where they used the higher levels of the taxonomy (analyze, evaluate, create). Why do you imagine those activities were chosen? How did their teaching and assessments impact your learning of the subject?
Tips for writing: Remember that your reader will not have background information about your experience. Describe the situation clearly and give details indicating what kind of class activity, assignment, or assessment you had, what was expected of you, how you learned, etc.
Part 2:
The following link is to a lesson plan titled: How animals help us design new inventions to solve environmental problems? https://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/lessons-plans/lesson-plan-invent-an-eco-friendly-solution-to-an-environmental-problem/
Evaluate
Read the lesson activities listed in the above lesson plan. Identify one or two activities that correspond to the lower levels (remember, understand, apply) and two activities corresponding to higher (analyze, evaluate, create) levels of Bloom’s taxonomy? Justify your answers. (Note: make sure that you clearly describe the activity e.g. In this activity the students were asked to watch a video…)
The last part of the lesson plan explains the phases in the invention process.: concept, design, build, review and redesign phase, and share. How are these phases the same or different from Bloom’s taxonomy?
Note: What do “reflect” and “evaluate” mean in this assignment?
Reflection, in this context, requires you to think about your own experiences in relation to what you learned in the lesson. Bring in your own perspectives and opinions, but remember to explain your reasoning. Provide concrete examples wherever possible.
Evaluation, in this assignment, requires you to make a judgement about what is being asked. Most importantly, you need to provide a justification for your evaluation. For example, if in your judgement, the activities correspond to a certain level of Bloom’s taxonomy, you need to provide a strong rationale for why you believe it to be so.
Remember:
Address BOTH parts – Reflect and Evaluate.
Include a reference list at the end of your submission.
Provide a word count at the end of the piece.