Bloom Smoom

The Bloom’s taxonomy model represents the hierarchy of probing questions that teachers use to facilitate their students through an exploration of learning and lesson. It takes students from the basic introduction of a topic up the ladder to full understanding. The beginning asks the students to recall facts and goes up to the end of challenging the student to create their pieces for learning.

         Bloom created the learning objectives in the 1950’s after a series of conferences held for educators and curriculum creators. In the 1990's, a former student of Bloom, Lorin Anderson, revised Bloom's Taxonomy.

         In Step 1 we have climbed the ladder with activities involving the topic of 5 E lesson plans. In the beginning we were introduced to the topic with the description and basic breakdown of each “E”. Then we were asked to recognize, list, identify, and describe the 5 E lesson plan parts through quizzes.

         We moved up the ladder to Applying and on with creating our own lesson plans. We took what we learned about each one and applied that to our teaches. We then constructed and produced our own forms of the lesson plans that we planned around our own goals.

         We also participated in the activities of evaluating. We have evaluated and tested our lesson plans through the teaches. The actual use of plan and the assessments are activities in which we did such.

         The highest level I reached with my students would be that of analysis. The students got to the point of analyzing the topics I presented to them. They were challenged to compare ideas and findings. They organized their findings and thoughts about the problems at hand. Comparing the inks in the chromatography, comparing the changes of the animals in adaptations, and the probability in my last are all examples I failed to reach the levels of the students creating and evaluating their own.

Assessments...Lord help me.

Assessment Blog

List 3 aspects pertaining to assessments, rubrics, and/or evaluations you have realized in the past few weeks. (1-2 sentences per aspect)


1. Assessments are sometimes the hardest component of the lesson plan. At the same time, they can be the most important.


2. It is difficult to accurately align the assessment to be properly effective with the objectives of my lesson. Also, making the rubric match up with the assessment I choose is crucial, but not always so obvious.


3. Assessments, specifically formative assessments, are probably the best way for both the students and myself to evaluate our progress. They can gauge and assess their work and mine and I can do the same.




Summarize in 2 sentences what you know or are going to learn about assessments and rubrics. 


Assessments are again key in evaluating and producing effective lesson plans. I am still working on how to get the best assessment possible with a correct and helpful rubric that will get better in time.




Provide 1 helpful or informative links about assessments and rubrics. (Do not add Rubistar.)


The following are helpful links I have found on here for assessments and rubrics.


The first is a site for teachers that has helpful discussion boards where fellow peers can discuss their ideas with one another. 


http://www.proteacher.net/discussions/showthread.php?t=1213


The second is a discussion on different formative assessments and how we can use each to learn from our students.


http://www.stemresources.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=70




"If you can both listen to children and accept their answers not as things to just be judged right or wrong but as pieces of information which may reveal what the child is thinking, you will have taken a giant step toward becoming a master teacher, rather than merely a disseminator of information." -Easley & Zwoyer, 1975

Questioning...

Share your thoughts about questioning and evaluating formative assessments. How will you improve upon your questioning techniques? How will you evaluate your students' formative assessments?

You have tremendous freedom in your response to the questioning and evaluating formative assessment blog. Write in a clear, professional manner.

Questions. We use them everyday in everything we do. From the classroom to ordering food at McDonald's, questions are involved. It's how find things out. It's how we get what we need to get done. Thus it only makes sense that we use questions to learn in the classroom. We spoke last week on how "no questions= no learning." 

So in order for me to be an effective teacher I have to pay attention to these questions. I have to watch when I am asking questions and when the students are asking me questions. From my teach and in our classroom I have seen points that will allow me to grow and best utilize the questioning I can use. 

For example, I noticed I asked a lot of close-ended questions..."Do you understand?" "Did you hear what this student said?" "Did your ink change colors?" "Did your time get faster?" 

Instead I could ask, "What is the concept we are learning here?" "What did your ink do?" These questions trigger the student to learning and thinking on their own. In the end they will walk away with a deeper understanding if they figure it out on their own. 

I can also watch the way I ask the questions. Having clear and precise directions on how I want the students to answer can cut down on confusion and chaos. Then having multiple students answer and changing up who answers will allow everyone in the classroom to participate.  Having confidence and spending time on the thought process are places where I can greatly improve. If I ask a question I need to pause and let them think about it. Then allow a student to answer. If they are on the right track or even way off...pause and let them keep thinking and discussing it out loud. Then I can steer them in the right direction instead of jumping the gun and getting to where we want to be by telling them.

By assessing the students I can get a better grasp of what I want to do and whether or not they understand the objectives. The following is a general example of a scoring rubric in Kentucky classroom based on the 1-4 (Novice-Distinguished rating) of how well the student performed.

The same general idea can be applied to the challenge of the students by modifying the category and requirements. For example, my last teach I did a challenge of asking 2 adaptations Simba the lion would have to acquire if he moved to the Arctic and Bowling Green. Also what would these adaptations help in Simba surviving. I could take the rubric and tweak it for answering those questions. 1-Attempted to 4-completely answered the questions with excellent understanding of objective. These kind of rubrics will best help me to observe what the students have actually learned.