Lab1_Craig

Week 5 Lab Session #1 - Find and evaluate 5 websites that you would use with your department or grade level to help professionally develop and support your staff with the revised taxonomy of educational objectives (Anderson and Kratwohl, 2001).

Website #1 - [|Leslie Owen Wilson's Curriculum Pages - Beyond Bloom: A New Version of the Cognitive Taxonomy]. I picked this resource for several reasons. 1) It shows a concise and easy-to-navigate explanation of the new version of Bloom's Taxonomy. 2) There is a link to email the webpage designer, Leslie Owen Wilson.

I would use this website to develop my colleague's understanding of the new taxonomy because it is very user-friendly. For example, Wilson uses the new terminology in the updated taxonomy, but also incorporates the old language of the old taxonomy...this I feel can be very helpful to almost anyone still working off the old taxonomy. It definitely helps to see and compare the old one to the new one, which this website does in a visually stimulating way.

That being said, this site does lack in providing authentic assessments and activities that this new taxonomy begs for. However, I would use this as a resource. If I was running a professional development meeting or seminar, I would introduce this site and then split the class into groups to research and then ultimately, blog about types of assessments and activities that would be useful under the new taxonomy. Ideally, I would be using this with a group of same subject area teachers, so that would be conducive to applying this new information to a typical unit, e.g. HSPA training or a novel study.

This site lends itself to professional collaboration in that it invites criticism and comments from other teachers. Also, I think if used properly, it would ultimately open up a floodgate of teachers discussing, planning, and executing new ideas under the new taxonomy.

Website #2 - [|Encyclopedia of Educational Technology - Bloom's Revised Taxonomy] Again, this site was useful for several reasons. 1) Visually, it works very well. Very easy to comprehend the material. 2) Very nice flow chart for a lesson plan utilizing the revised taxnonomy. 3) Typical objectives are included, even comparing the new objectives to ones under the old taxonomy.

This is a nice site to use immediately after the previous one. I envision this as a professional development day, so I picture using this website immediately after the Wilson site. This one takes the knowledge that would be //remembered// and //understood// from the Wilson site and then //applied// to this site. The author is a graduate student, Emily Cruz, out of San Diego State University, and while some of her writing is lacking, her visuals more than make up for it. Particularly the table where she compares the old objectives under the old taxonomy with the new objectives under the new taxonomy. The subtle differences between the taxonomies are brought out in clear, concise language that teachers will be able to understand and discuss.

Again, this is a nice site to use after the Wilson site and after the discussion and blogging about the new lessons I would be doing after the first site. The staff would be able to see and compare their objectives with the objectives that Cruz outlines.

This site does lack in communication with the author and in overall addressing of how assessment fits into this. However, I would want to continue to build on what we've done in the previous breakout session: now the staff knows the new taxonomy, has written objectives with the new taxonomy, now can compare the objectives with Cruz' and now we can begin to address the assessment portion of this.

Website #3 - [|Designing Effective Projects: Thinking Skills Frameworks: Bloom's Taxonomy: A New Look at an Old Standby] I liked this site for one reason: 1) It builds off the Cruz site in that it provides more objectives for me to use with my colleagues.

While this site explains again the whole background of Bloom's and then Anderson's work with the taxonomy, it takes it a step further by breaking down Bloom's taxonomy a bit further than the previous two sites. I guess that the first two sites took for granted the audience's understanding of Bloom's, but it was nice to see a bit more detail on the old version. That being said, I really like this site for the objectives given. If you'll rememeber, the previous two sites build a nice foundation for the //remembering, understanding//, and //application// of the new taxonomy. Now, as a supervisor training his staff in this new taxonomy, I need to extend this by having my staff //analyze//, //evaluate,// and //create// assessments based off these objectives. What this site does is list the objectives under each of the learning verbs Anderson uses. This is extremely helpful when I want to break down the parts of each level of the taxonomy and see how the parts fit into the whole.

I would lead my colleagues in designing assessments to meet the objectives. I would model the process and then have the staff give responses based on what we have done already today.

The last bit of interest in this site lies in the fact that it is project based...the objectives, espcially under the apex of the new taxonomy, //create,// are especially geared in the field of projects. Also, this site goes a step further and details what the authors call "the knowledge dimension". They break this down even further into the metacognitive stage, which is increasingly relevant when looked at with the project aspect of this assessment.

Website #4 - Bloom's Digital Taxonomy. I hesitated to use this site, because it was one of the ones listed on the class Diigo page, but it's just so good! It has everything all of the previous websites have and more...blogs, wikis, PDF files for rubrics to assess all of levels of the taxonomy, and so much more. The visuals are amazing, the presentation is concise and clear...it really is the best resource out there.

It lends itself very easily to colleague collaboration, especially the section on collaboration! I would end this session of professional development with a focus on this particular section because it gives so many examples of collaboration in many different organizational settings that I would be remiss if I didn't look closely at it.

I think if you had a limited time frame, you could just as easily begin with this website and it would nicely take care of the objective of this professional development.

Website #5 - [|Learning and Teaching in Action] I would use this last in my professional development course. It stands out for one reason: 1) It shows the realistic, practical implications of following the revised taxonomy.

This online article details how a research project ("PlaySMART") was created by using the revised taxonomy "to explore methods of promoting the knowledge and cognitive skills required for skilled performance in a Physical education context" (1). It breaks down the concept by domain and then details a typical problem solving event for the PlaySMART, involving a strategic dilemma in a soccer game. I would want the staff to see the real world implications of this taxonomy, as well as the technological aspect.

I would like using this last to serve as a springboard for discussion of the realistic aspects of the taxonomy as well as brainstorming the types of technology this could lead to using in the classroom.