Bloom reheated

In an age of digital media, where learners create, remix and share their own content, an overhaul of Bloom's Cognitive Taxonomy was long overdue. Yesterday I posted a critique of Bloom's Cognitive Taxonomy and argued that it is outmoded in the digital age. Unfortunately, Lorin Anderson's revised model (2001 in conjunction with Krathwohl) of the taxonomy is not as great an improvement on the original model as its adherents might claim. Supposedly upgraded to take into consideration new ways of learning using digital tools, the revised model remains firmly rooted in the old behaviourist paradigm, and is just as reliant on the production of observable (and therefore) measurable behaviour as the original model. This is not surprising, because Anderson is one of Bloom's former students, and Bloom was steeped in the behaviourist tradition. However, one useful feature of Anderson's model is that it slides the focus away from declarative knowledge (knowing that) toward procedural knowledge (knowing how), and this is useful in constructionist learning contexts (learning by making - See for example the work of Seymour Papert). If students learn facts, but have no understanding of how or why these facts can be applied, or how they can be constructed into some useful form, learning is two-dimensional.

One of the gravest errors in Anderson's revised model is that it's still a taxonomy. It is flawed at that. Anderson's new categorisation simply moves the old categories around a little. He places 'Creating' at the apex of the pyramid, with 'Evaluating' beneath it. Overbaugh and Schultz (2005) suggest that in Anderson's model, Bloom's Synthesis is replaced by 'Creating', and that Bloom's 'Evaluation' and 'Synthesis' therefore trade places. This raises a question - should we really expect learners to create something and then not bother to evaluate it? So why the swap? The problem lies in the sequence. Ultimately, synthesis and evaluation, along with all the other levels of cognitive achievement cannot be represented as a single linear process. Let's suppose instead that learning processes are chaotic and iterative in nature, and that we learn through a continual flux of categories, combined in increasingly complex ways. We might acquire better knowledge while we are in the process of applying and evaluating, for example. This leads to the conclusion that the classification of 'levels' of attainment is misrepresented in both Bloom's and Anderson's models. Tim Brook makes the point that the sequence of learning categories is problematic and suggests a matrix instead. But this still fails to address the problem that Bloom's taxonomy segregates and compartmentalises activities, when often we learn across and through combinations of learning modes.

Neither Bloom's nor Anderson's models take new, fluid methods of learning into consideration. Emerging theories such as connectivism, heutagogy and paragogy are more representative of digital age learning, and for many, the future of learning through and with digital tools will rely heavily upon such explanatory frameworks. We need to find ways to nurture the agile, flexible, critical and creative learners we desperately need in our communities today. Neither Bloom's nor Anderson's taxonomies can achieve this. Patching up an old model and rehashing it just won't do. As John Lennon once put it: 'You can't reheat a soufflé.'

Anderson's Revision Model image source

References

Anderson, L.W., and D. Krathwohl (Eds.) (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching and Assessing: a Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Longman, New York.

Overbaugh, R. C. and Schultz, L. (2005) Bloom's Taxonomy. Available online at:  http://www.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm (Accessed 21 June, 2012)

Bloom's taxonomy rehashed by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Bloom and bust

Bloom's Taxonomy has been hailed as a template for best practice in course design. It has been a part of the bedrock of teacher education courses for over half a century, and is a model just about every learning professional is aware of, and has used at some point in their teaching career. Bloom's Cognitive Taxonomy is probably the best known and most used, and is organised into six levels of learning rising from simple to complex. These are often represented as a pyramid with the most complex category at the apex. Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues identified three distinct domains of learning, namely the Cognitive (thinking - knowing, reasoning), Affective (feeling - emotions, attitudes) and Psychomotor (doing - physical skills, practice) domains. Both the Cognitive domain and Affective domain were published as edited volumes, in 1956 and 1964 respectively. In the past, the usefulness of the model was widely acknowledged, particularly in the construction of lesson plans.

Veronica Alexander talks about how the taxonomy has been successfully used as a template for learning programmes. She writes:

"A well-written educational objective (or learning objective) is a single, specific, measurable description of what the learner will be taught and is expected to master. The learner can only be measured if they can demonstrate a behavior that provides evidence of their knowledge or skill. One learning experience can be composed of one or more objectives. Objectives can also be nested where a Terminal Learning Objective (TLO) is a high-level summary of the demonstrable knowledge or skill and one or more Enabling Learning Objectives (ELO) are sub-skills which support each TLO. Bloom’s taxonomy provides a method for learning designers to plan, organize and scale the complexity of the content in a way that supports learner performance".

And yet Bloom's taxonomy raised some serious issues. How relevant is it in the digital age? Should we still be organising learning experiences as a gradient of 'terminal learning objectives' in an age where learning is changing, and where personal technologies and social media are increasingly significant? Learning is changing, because the boundaries between discrete learning activities are blurring. Assessment methods are changing too. Bloom's Cognitive taxonomy represents a very rigid method of control over learning behaviour, and offered structure for teachers in the last century. But just how desirable is it in today's classrooms? Exactly how much control do teachers need to exert over students' learning today? What about freedom to learn, and what about individual creativity? Where do they fit into the grand scheme of 21st Century learning? If you subscribe to the belief that students are blank slates (tabulas rasa) on which knowledge can be inscribed by experts, then Bloom's taxonomy is for you. If on the other hand, you believe that all learners have the ability to be creative, critical and independent, then you will start looking elsewhere for guidance on how to provide engaging learning experiences. Bloom and his colleagues identified three domains - knowledge, attitudes and skills - but omitted some important additional components - intuition and creativity. Was this because they are difficult to 'measure' objectively?

These are not the only problems. Criticism of Bloom's Cognitive taxonomy has been widespread, but at the outset, I want to argue that it is often a mistake to try to represent complex ideas in the form of simplistic diagrams. I'm not sure whether Bloom and his colleagues ever wished to see their work represented as a pyramid, but that's how it now appears in many popular interpretations, and it was originally presented as a progressive linear sequence. Portraying the 6 levels of attainment in this manner only serves to reinforce the prescriptive, sequential and reductionist nature of Bloom's Cognitive taxonomy. Secondly, there is doubt over the validity and reliability of Bloom's taxonomy (see for example Brenda Sugrue's critique). Way back in 1974, Ormell criticised Bloom for failing to acknowledge 'imaginative understanding' - essential creativity in learning.

Bloom's taxonomy has been criticised for its simplistic view of a very complex human activity. Post modernist criticism points to its neat and ordered classification of learning modes and argues that the human mind is far to complex to be represented in such a prescribed manner. Another post-modern critique is that many of the terms used in the taxonomy are artificially constructed as ideology to 'conceal the messy side of learning' (Spencer, 2008). Probably the most important criticism of Bloom though, and the most relevant in an age of social media, is that the taxonomy tends to focus on individual learning activities. Technology has changed that. Today social learning is increasingly prevalent. Collaboration, shared online spaces, discussion, co-construction of content and negotiation of meaning are all evident in the 21st Century classroom. Bloom's taxonomy has little to offer here, because it was devised in an era of instruction in which drill and practice were common and where behaviorism was the dominant ideology.

Ultimately, Bloom's Taxonomy was used as a tool to aid curriculum design. However, it is nonsense to expect teachers to continue to write verb laden 'instructional objectives' to describe behaviour for each and every one of the six cognitive levels that they are subsequently required to 'measure'. At best, applying the taxonomy to assessment reduces learning to a series of fairly meaningless behavioural links, and at worst, it does nothing to support or encourage the intuitive and creative instincts of every child in the class. Shelly Wright also expresses disquiet, suggesting that in the pyramid model, it appears that to reach a peak of creativity, learners need to traverse all the inferior stages of learning first. This is also clearly untrue in many real life experiences. Shelly suggests flipping, or inverting the pyramid so that creating (or making) becomes the first stage in the learning process. I'm not convinced that this significantly improves the taxonomy. It simply creates yet another linear, artificial representation of complex learning processes.

Tomorrow: Part 2: Bloom reheated

References
Bloom, B. S. and Krathwohl, D. R. (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. New York: Longmans.
Krathwohl, D. R., Bloom, B. S. and Masia, B. B. (1964) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook II: Affective Domain. New York: David McKay Company.
Ormell, C. P. (1974) Bloom's Taxonomy and the Objectives of Education, Educational Research, 17, 1.
Spencer, J. T. (2008) Bloom's Taxonomy: Criticisms. Teacher Commons. Available online at: http://teachercommons.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/bloom-taxonomy-criticisms.html (Accessed 22 June, 2012)

Bloom's Taxonomy image source


Bloom and bust by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Clark is not Keen

I'm back home from Online Educa Berlin, and it's time to reflect. Germany was a lot of fun, cold, festive and ... well, Germany. I'm left wondering though who this woman is everyone keeps talking about - anyone know anything about Alice Klar...?

Anyway. In comparison to all the other conferences on elearning and ICT I have been to this year, Educa just has to be the best. It had everything - an excellent environment for relaxing, thinking, discussing and networking (the Hotel Intercontinental on Budapesterstrasse must be one of the best and most expensive venues for a European elearning event), great social events, and an excellent line up of sessions. With over 2000 delegates at this year's event, it was also packed with diversity, both culturally and in terms of alternative perspectives. The content in most of the sessions was stimulating, challenging and in some cases absolutely inspirational.

I'm referring in particular to a keynote session on the final day of Educa, presented by Donald Clark (above), who was articulate, humorous, and at times, deeply profound in his analysis of the process of learning. He began by debunking many of the established and commonly accepted learning theories espoused by the likes of Benjamin Bloom (Taxonomy), Robert Gagne (Stages model) and Abraham Maslow (Hierarchy of needs). Maslow's model is particularly popular in the corporate training sector, said Clark, because most people like to put pyramids on their PowerPoint slides. Glib, perhaps, but also inherently true when faced with the oversimplification of Maslow's model. (Don't forget that Carl Rogers onces stated that we don't have to work our way through all of Maslow's hierarchy - some people can self-actualise instantly). Clark also launched into learning style theories by the likes of Kolb and Honey & Mumford.

By far the most delicious experience for the audience however, was Donald Clark's response to the earlier keynote by enfant terrible Andrew Keen. How the two differ in their approach! We should all feel insulted, said Clark, by Keen's dismissal of bloggers and wikepedians as merely 'monkeys with typewriters'. There were audible gasps when he labelled Keen 'an idiot', but I think the gasps were of admiration rather than surprise or outrage. Donald Clark was simply articulating what many people were thinking. 14 years olds have as much right to post internet opinions as Harvard professors, we heard him say. And social software is not about making money, but about liberating learners to contribute their own content to the mix.

But... 'get a grip, Andrew!' was perhaps the most apposite soundbite of the day...