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.

Recycling Kolb

Most learning professionals have heard of David A. Kolb. His experiential learning model (1984) is just one part of his grander theory on learning, and is often cited as a model that encapsulates the entire learning journey. Kolb's model was categorised by Mayes and deFreitas (2004) as an individual constructivist theory, in that it features a number of components that reflect solo learning activities. This is in direct contrast to the more familiar social constructivist theories of Vygotsky, Bruner et al, which rely on co-construction and negotiation of meaning. It owes more to Piaget's 'scientific' or cognitive constructivist camp. Kolb's model frames individual exploration of the world, and can be seen in a number of activities such as problem based learning, inquiry based learning and experiential learning. Although none of these preclude a social element of learning such as collaboration or group discussion, individual constructivism tends to rely on the ability of the learner to be an autonomous and independent self-learner.

The experiential model Kolb proposed reveals a particular flow of activity that is represented in the image below. It flows clockwise and is both iterative and cyclical. It is representative of the kind of activities one sees in the old style e-learning package designs still used in many companies to impart basic health and safety or customer care training. One of the criticisms of Kolb's model is that it is fairly prescriptive, and from it derives the four learning styles he identified; diverging, assimilating, converging and accommodating. A number of derivative learning styles models 'borrowed' from this model (for example Honey and Mumford's Learning Styles model). It continues to feature strongly in many corporate training/learning and development (L and D) design and delivery strategies because it focuses largely on competence and performance, traits most businesses value and require their employees to acquire and develop. And yet, although L and D departments are also embracing social learning, many still continue to refer to Kolb's model as an important model of learning. This is questionable. One view is that the experiential learning model is increasingly irrelevant in an age where social media, and social learning are increasingly prevalent. It is worth revisiting Kolb's model to explore its criticisms and weaknesses.

A major criticism of Kolb's experiential learning cycle is that any or all of the four phases he identifies could occur simultaneously (Jeffs and Smith, 1999). Another is that the model does not sufficiently acknowledge the power of reflection on learning (Boud et al, 1985). Probably the most important criticism of the cycle is that depending on the learner, and/or the activities they are engaged in, some stages of the process can be bypassed, or repeated several times in any sequence. Way back in 1933 John Dewey remarked that reflective learning processes are highly complex and as Smith (2001) has argued, representing this complexity in such neat and precise units is simplistic and clearly problematic. There is little to stop the process being reversed or sequenced in entirely different ways, depending on learner motivation, individual differences, subject being studied and a new component Kolb probably had no reason to consider at the time - the digital tools being employed to support those learning activities.

Besides there being very little (or mostly weak) empirical evidence to support Kolb's model (and all of its derivatives), I also argue that in a digital age, it is now increasingly obsolete. It served its purpose in the 'instructional design' period of e-learning development where 'stand alone' Computer Aided Training (CBT) content was king, but we have moved on.  Social learning processes are showing greater promise than isolated learning, and we now have the tools to capitalise on the human instinct to learn collaboratively and to create, remix and share our own content. Kolb's model is anachronistic, belonging to another time. It is time to develop new models to explain the processes that occur when people learn using socially rich interactive digital media.

Image by Fotopedia
Experiential Learning Model Graphic source  

References

Boud, D., Keogh, R. and Walker, D. (eds.) (1985) Reflection. Turning experience into learning, London: Kogan Page.
Dewey, J. (1933) How We Think, New York: Heath.
Jeffs, M. and Smith, T. (1999) Learning from Experience. Available online at: http://www.infed.org/foundations/f-explrn.htm (Accessed 20 June, 2012).
Kolb, D. A. (1984) Experiential Learning Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice Hall.
Mayes, T. and deFreitas, S. (2004) Review of e-learning theories, frameworks and models. Stage 2 of the e-learning models desk study. Available at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearningpedagogy/modelsdeskstudy.aspx (Accessed 20 June, 2012).
Smith, M. K. (2001) David A. Kolb on Experiential Learning. Available online at: http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm (Accessed 20 June, 2012).


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

You can't ban the blog

One Scottish local authority has tonight been left with egg all over its face. Argyll and Bute's attempts to censor a 9 year old blogging about her school dinners backfired spectacularly when they were forced to very publicly retract their original decision. The gagging order was imposed on Martha Payne, a primary school girl who attends Lochgilphead Primary School, because she took pictures of her school dinners and then rated them out of 10 on her blog. Although Martha was writing the blog to raise money for charity, and was glowing with praise about some of her dinners, the council decided that not all publicity was good publicity and instructed her head teacher to order her not to take any more photographs of her lunches. The Argyll and Bute council officials thought that newspaper coverage of the 9 year old's blog was causing catering staff to fear for their jobs. But the council backed down due to pressure from the public, ith support from celebrity TV chefs Nick Nairn and Jamie Oliver on Twitter and over the traditional media. The council admitted its mistake and through gritted teeth, a spokesman gave several TV and radio interviews to clarify their position.

Needless to say, the adverse publicity attracted by the council over their reactionary initial decision has reflected positively on Martha's blog, NeverSeconds, which is now receiving thousands of views and dozens of comments each hour. The blog has already amassed over 3 million hits.

The wider issue here is that free speech has many forms, and even children are able to speak out. Primary children such as Martha Payne are able to voice their opinions and gain huge audiences for their writing over the web. They are armed with cameras and mobile phones and they know exactly how to use them. Anyone who underestimates the power of blogging and other forms of social media therefore does so at their peril. And as Argyll and Bute council discovered the hard way yesterday, it is foolish to try to stop children from expressing their ideas publicly. Their decision blew up in their faces, and their only comfort is that Martha's blog has grown in the light of their inadvertent publicity of her work, and is earning even more money for her chosen charity. Go Martha!

Image by Freefoto


You can't ban the blog by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Dialogue, debate and destinations

I don't have the time or the inclination to calculate how many miles I have travelled in the last week, but it involved three car journeys, 11 train rides, numerous taxi trips and one flight. I managed to keynote four conferences in six days, respectively eLearning 2.0 at Brunel University, London; the CILIPS annual conference at the Apex Hotel in Dundee; the Solstice Conference at Edge Hill University, and finally the Digital Literacies Conference at Southampton University. I spent much of my time gazing out at the countryside going by from the windows of trains, but during the times my feet were on firm ground I did also manage to have some decent and productive conversations with old friends and new, and fielded questions from delegates during my presentations at all four events.

Some notable discussions took place, some of which I can briefly summarise here on this blog. I took issue for example with a statement by Rosemary Goring (Literary Editor and columnist for The Herald) who keynoted the CILIPS conference on Monday. She suggested that Libraries should conserve their traditional roles and that any change that took place should be 'geological'. Goring was essentially arguing that libraries should not be dictated to by technological changes, but in doing so she missed a fundamental point. Libraries must change, because the needs and perceptions of users is changing. In my own keynote speech the following morning, speaking to an audience of around 200 library and information professionals, I argued that libraries need to become more flexible and agile (and indeed many already are), to respond to new learning practices, and an increased interest in knowledge and research. Co-incidentally, in their packs, each delegate received a copy of Panlibus Magazine, containing an article written by me entitled 'Moving away from books'. I remarked that before they burnt me at the stake for heresy, there should in fact have been a question mark at the end of the title. The jury is still out on the future of paper based content, but for the record I see no immediate demise of the book. The question is: do you like reading or do you like books? (acknowledgement to James Clay for this question). If you like reading, then any avenue of enquiry (kindle readers, e-books, online search, even audio) remains open, whereas if you insist on reading only from books, then your scope is increasingly limited. I cited the fact that for the first time this year, Amazon is reporting selling more e-book downloads than it is paper based books. This and other technology driven changes demand that libraries move quickly to adapt to new trends and remain agile to maintain relevance in a digital age.

Other noteworthy debates took part at Solstice and the Digital Literacy conferences during the week. I was challenged by delegates at Solstice to elaborate on the legal and ethical issues of Creative Commons and other Copyleft approaches. Creative Commons, I explained, is a means of circumventing Internet Copyright constraints. It seems perverse in today's adverse economic climate, said Brian Lamb, to hoard knowledge in any form. I added to this that in a time when knowledge is needed more than ever, why do we allow edubusinesses and greedy publishers to commoditise knowledge and publicly funded research? I advocate giving content away for free, by publishing it (as with this blog post) under a Creative Commons licence that allows anyone to take any or all of the content for reuse, as long as they attribute the source and re-licence it under the same conditions (share and share alike). Many academics, I argued, feel uneasy about giving content away for free, preferring to perpetuate the old ivory tower mentality. But give away we must, if we are to reach audiences that extend beyond our own little academic fraternities. Gone are the days when we can rest on our laurels by publishing our research to a small and select group of elite scientists. The general public also need to know about advances in science, medicine, technology and education, and the best way to do this is to publish openly. I gave another challenge to those present to boycott closed journals, and publish in open access journals. I was not calling for publishers to give away journal content for free, but simply to reduce their prices to reasonable rates so that the average student can afford access. The ethics of this are clear - publicly funded research has been paid for out of taxes. It should therefore be made freely available to those who have paid their taxes.

Finally, a note about the Digital Literacies Conference at Southampton (pictured). With Salford University's Cristina Costa, I presented an 'unkeynote' - a kind of plenary workshop - and we had a whale of a time disrupting the proceedings and causing a great deal of mess and chaos. Yet out of the chaos came some order, from social tagging, online collaboration, critical thinking and intelligent searching activities, we led toward round table discussions, delegates explored the spectrum of new literacies that are emerging as a result of the introduction of new technologies into formal learning contexts. After several quick-fire 10 minute presentations, the second unkeynote, presented by Doug Belshaw and Sue Beckingham dwelt on essential elements of digital literacies, and was drawn largely from Doug's recent doctoral thesis. Doug helped us to think about digital literacies in a sort of periodic table of 8 'c's - their slideshow is here. As each table came to grips with the Cultural, Cognitive, Constructive, Communicative, Confidence, Creative, Critical and Civic aspects of using technology to learn, we were then asked to choose two and develop a learning activity around them. The result was a lot of great ideas that could be incorporated into learning activities in any education sector. Doug and Sue concluded an excellent presentation with the quote from Johnson (2008) who said 'functional internet literacy is not the ability to use a set of technical tools; rather, it is the ability to use a set of cognitive tools'.

I thank all of my hosts in London, Dundee, Ormskirk and Southampton for making me feel so at home. The Storify record of the event by Ivan Mendelez and the Flickr image collection by Farnoosh Behraman have captured some of the dynamics and atmosphere of the conference.

Images by Farnoosh Berahman


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

Letting go of the past

As a man was walking past some elephants in a circus, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these large animals were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds. Yet they stayed were they were.

He asked the trainer why the animals didn't try to escape. “Well,” the trainer explained, “when they were very young and much smaller we used the same size rope to tie them and, at that size, it was enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”

The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.

Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?

Failure is part of learning; we should never give up the struggle in life.

Sometimes it can be difficult to let go of the past. But often, it's the only way we see any progress. Not only do we need to learn, we sometimes need to unlearn and relearn. That could mean breaking down a long established belief or perception. For me it meant overcoming the fear and embarrassment that I had experienced in primary school when I was laughed at for asking a seemingly 'stupid' question. It took me years to gain the confidence to speak in public and overcome the thought that may be I was the only one in the room who didn't understand what was being said. I asked a question once during a conference plenary, and afterwards several delegates came up to me and said 'thanks for asking that question, I didn't understand either, but was too scared to ask'.

We are all in the same boat it seems. Letting go of previous bad experiences and trying again with a 'clean sheet' is a way of unlearning. It is freedom to learn from failures and previous shortcomings so we can do it better next time. What do you do in your classroom to give learners a fresh chance to let go of the past?

Image by Fotopedia

Letting go of the past by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Everyone's a critic (again)

I recently blogged about the hidden audience effect, and cited Westfields Junior School's S'cool Internet Radio and David Mitchell's Quadblogging projects as examples of how students can become better engaged with learning when they perform their work for an audience. Social media and the internet have largely been responsible for this change. Before social media, the school play or the end of term concert was a good way to allow children to perform to an audience, as was the art display and the school sports day. But not every child excels at art, or is good at music or sport. What about those who are good mathematicians, or the scientists or linguists? Prior to social media, how did they perform their skills for an audience? Social media now provides a way. A recent blogpost by Katherine McKnight listed 12 ways technology has changed learning, and includes 'expanding audiences' near the top of the list:

Students' sense of audience is completely different. When I was in high school in the 1980's, the audience was the teacher. When I started teaching high school in 1988, the audience was the teacher and peers.  In the 21st century, it's the WORLD. Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and other online platforms changed our notion of audience.

I think the statement requires some unpacking. Yes, social media is changing our concept of audience, because the tools we use are naturally participatory. Students blog their ideas and in doing so, they perform to a potential worldwide audience. They receive feedback from their peers in the form of comments, and gain a sense of pride in their work. When they record themselves on camera, they can release it as a YouTube video and gain feedback from their peers. It can be very motivational: watching a growing number of views, comments, shares and favourites can be a huge incentive for students. But there are also risks. The danger of playing to this gallery is the exposure to a potentially harsh and unforgiving environment. YouTube is particularly notorious for trolling (individuals who patrol social media sites to make mischief) and can be a breeding ground for unneccesarily harsh, or deliberately hurtful comments. Receiving such responses, no matter how ill informed or illiterate they often may be, can seriously damage the delicate self esteem of vulnerable young learners.

Teachers should therefore promote the use of YouTube as a performance channel with due consideration to such a risks. The same safeguards should apply to blogging, where teachers are advised to act as moderators of the comments that are received, filtering each one before allowing it to be posted on the blog for students to read. There is also the danger of cyberbullying from within the peer group, and such malicious activities also need to be obviated by the appropriate management of social media tools in formal learning settings. A fine line needs to be drawn between deliberately destructive behaviour, and critial review of a learner's work. Whilst the former knocks down, the latter can build up, challenging the student to refine their skills and learn more about their subject.

Arguably, the benefits outweigh the risks, and performing your learning online using social media is a game changer. Never before have students enjoyed the opportunity to shine on such a global stage. The audience has indeed expanded, and where once a student was writing their assignment to be read by an audience of one (the teacher or examiner), now there is potential to demonstrate new learning through a huge range of globally accessible media.

Assessment should no longer be confined to the written tests or essays that were so prevalent in the last century, but might be extended to podcasts, blogs, wikis, videos, image collections and combinations of these in other media. What teachers now need to avoid is replicating old practices within new media. The opportunities to create new ways of assessment are there to be exploited. The only real limitation is imagination.

Image source


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

Feet keep walking

Someone made the ironic remark on my Facebook page that I travel a lot to speak about how information travels in 'bits and digital form'. I retorted that, yes, it is a little ironic, but certainly not surprising, because people are naturally social beings. Our social nature ensures that we are more at ease in face to face contexts, and that technology mediation of communication will always be second best. That's why so much research has been invested in studying how people respond to digitally mediated forms of interaction. I was personally involved in some of the early large scale studies into how students and their teachers adapt to communication through audio, video and internet based tools. Unequivocally, those involved said that although technology is a great way of keeping in contact, personal connection in co-present environments is always more desirable. Learning technology has taken me all around the world to teach, speak and research, and I see no respite in the travelling as my schedule shows. It's conference season, and this coming month I'm travelling the length and breadth of the nation to give keynotes in four conferences and hosting two invited workshops.

I start on Friday 8 June with a keynote speech on Day 2 of the eLearning 2.0 conference, hosted by Brunel University, in West London. My presentation is entitled Learning in a Digital Age: The myth and the reality, and will feature several debates on issues such as learning styles, digital natives and immigrants theory and other pedagogical themes.

On Sunday I fly up to Edinburgh and then onwards to Dundee where to keynote on Day 2 of the Chartered Institute of Librarians and Information Professionals Scotland (CILIPS) Conference at the Apex City Quay Hotel. My keynote speech for CILIPS is called 'Learning in a Digital World' and will feature some of my recent work on 'Library 2.0' and 'Libraries without walls', featured on this blog.

On Tuesday afternoon I travel down to Ormskirk, near Liverpool  in time for the Solstice Conference on Wednesday 13 June, hosted by Edgehill University. I will be giving the opening keynote on Day 1 and speaking on the topic of 'Digital Pedagogy: The Future is Open'. I'm speaking about open source, open content, open educational resources and open scholarship.

My final event of the week will be at Southampton University, on Thursday 14 June, where I have been invited to present an unkeynote with Salford University's Cristina Costa at the Digital Literacies Conference. Cris and I are old friends, and because the conference focuses on digital literacies, we will be asking our audience to explore a number of contexts around literacies in a digital age.

The month of June draws to an end with two workshops at the E2BN Conference at the Robinson Centre in Wyboston. I will be talking about how social media and personalised learning can be brought together to provide dynamic new learning environments for all students.

The travel will be tiring, but I hope to meet a lot of old friends and new contacts, and I'm sure I will learn a lot. If you are at any of the above events, please come and say hello.

Image by Steve Wheeler


Feet keep walking by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.