SAFE 808 A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview & Rote Versus Meaningful Learning Garey Pritchett, MS, CHP

Key Terms: What is Taxonomy? Rote Versus Meaningful Learning? We learned this in Paschold’s class!!! As defined in the article “The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is a framework for classifying statements of what we expect or intend students to learn as a result of instruction”… Why didn’t they just say listing learning objectives? Rote Learning- Memorizing and Recalling Facts Meaningful Learning- Applying learning to solve problems

Rote Learning… Not Good

Poll Time (Try to be honest) Poll 1: Can you recall the 6 levels in the cognitive domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy? Yes or No? Poll 2: Can you apply Bloom’s Taxonomy to developing curriculum for a Safety Course? Yes or No? Poll 3: Based upon your answers to Poll 1 and Poll 2 was Paschold’s class A.) Rote Learning, B.) Meaningful Learning, or C.) No Learning (let’s be honest… Winter break was both long and awesome)???

The Original Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956)

Bloom’s Taxonomy Revised (2001)

Wait, What’s the Difference?

Taxonomy Tables to Categorize Objectives

Summary of the Revision The changes reflect the emphasis of taking knowledge or skills and applying them to a problem or new situation. Therefore synthesis (creating) is the new highest form of the taxonomy. This is putting what you have learned to use by solving a new or unique problem. Evaluation or judging is now the second highest because you apply what you know and make judgments based on a given situation, but you don’t create anything new.

Rote Versus Meaningful Learning The article on rote vs. meaningful learning basically states that you should use the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy (evaluate and create) to ensure the transfer of knowledge to long-term memory. This would be problem-based or project-based assessments. What can you do with what you learned? The lower levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy are best used to recall, remember, explain and apply knowledge that is taught for a traditional test or exam. What information or formulas did you learn and can you use that info correctly?

Bloom’s Taxonomy with the 19 Cognitive Processes Remember: Recognizing, Recalling Understand: Interpreting, Exemplifying, Classifying, Summarizing, Inferring, Comparing, Explaining Apply: Executing, Implementing Analyze: Differentiating, Organizing, Attributing Evaluate: Checking, Critiquing Create: Generating, Planning, Producing

Applying to Real Life… Yep, that’s the Goal Rote Learning: In Graduate School we had a Radiation Detection and Measurement Course. It covered the theory behind scintillation detectors like NaI. We had weekly quizzes that required recall knowledge about the reading. Meaningful Learning: Then we had a lab where we hooked up the NaI to spectroscopy equipment to do isotope identification. Applying the knowledge to a real life situation to solve a problem.

Retention and Transfer to the Job In-line Monitoring System to protect unsafe geometry tanks from a concentration of U-235 that will create an unwanted criticality. Hey kid, make sure we don’t blow the Plant up… Had to set up NaI detectors with associated ratemeters and PLC to automatically close a valve when the concentration of U-235 exceeded the limit where a criticality was possible. This required energy calibration of the NaI probes, establishing an appropriate Region of Interest based on probe resolution (range of energies to monitor for the 186 keV gamma from U-235), and creating three standard concentrations of U-235 in solution to complete an efficiency calibration. Based on linear regression of the three calibration points, the alarm set-point in cpm was able to be established.

Agree/Disagree with the Author Poll Time Again! Do you think that the revision to Bloom’s Taxonomy and associated Rote versus Meaningful Learning Articles are correct? In other words, do you think using knowledge to create new things is the highest form of learning and not evaluation (testing)? Yes or No? Discussion Board Posts… Engineering and Applying Learning seems to be more coveted than Memorizing…

Most Memorable Academic Experiences What were some of the most memorable academic experiences you had and would they have been considered the “Create” level of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy? My examples for High School would be building the popsicle stick bridge and building the mouse trap racer for Physics Class.

Discussion Board Topic What would you recommend for ideas to get students to the “Create” level of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy? Can you think of specific ideas from your current job that could become classroom projects or assignments?

Questions???