On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 2:38 AM, Chuck Grimes <cgrimes at rawbw.com> wrote:
> ``I haven't explored it further or checked the website referred to, but
> it
> seems as though Universities may be asked to prepare teachers to conform
> to the No Child Left Behind. It may be of interest to college teachers
> on the list.'' Carrol
>
> ``When these rules go into effect, each teacher preparation program will
> be required to show how they will prepare teacher education candidates
> to meet every standard and all indicators...''
>
> -----------
>
> I was trying to imagine what is the conceptual model here.
>
> Then I found the answer between Alan Rudy and Jeffery Fisher on an
> unrelated thread. It went straight passed me the first time. I am
> re-posting (without permission) because I think this exchange belongs on
> on this thread.
>
> CG
> --------------------------
>
> ``Speaking of Bloom's taxonomy, is there anything resembling empirical
> evidence supporting it? Or is it just something that Bloom pulled out of
> his behind and everybody glommed onto it? I've not gone and read the
> book ---which, yes, I suppose I should do, just 'cuz nobody who
> *espouses* the
> taxomony has read it, either -- but it seems to be entirely what you
> might
> call *a priori* in nature . . .'' Jeffery Fisher
>
> ``Well, I don't think Bloom et al. pulled it out of his/their
> behind/s... but this stuff is OLD school educational psych, initiated in
> the late 1940s and "completed" in the mid-1950s. The whole taxonomy is
> more interesting than the six "cognitive" steps alone )
>
> http://www.businessballs.com/bloomstaxonomyoflearningdomains.htm#bloom%
> 27s%20taxonomy%20overview<http://www.businessballs.com/bloomstaxonomyoflearningdomains.htm#bloom%%0A27s%20taxonomy%20overview>
> ),
>
> but it's basic structure lends itself to reification (and forgetting
> the five "affective" and five "psychomotor" steps - much less
> integrating the three columns.
>
> My sense is that the NCLB and RttT crap basically treats the six
> cognitive
> steps as a bottom-to-top and accumulating series. First you learn to
> recall data before understanding it. Second you seek to be able to
> apply your understanding and analyse the structure of your knowledge
> before, finally, engaging in second order analyses in order to
> creatively synthesize that knowledge and evaluate its utility relative
> to others. Such an approach, which may or may not be in line with
> Bloom's intent, assumes students are blank slates/empty containers that
> are activated by the inscription of knowledge by educational
> professionals. I'm sure Bloom intendes that inscription and activation
> to occur through receptiveness and imitation, reaction and manipulation,
> action and precision, value articulation and integration, and
> internalization and naturalization - where all five dual steps are more
> or less controlled by the educational professional.
>
> Now, of course, all of this goes directly against my own learning style
> -
> which hated every single minute of classes that treated me in this kind
> of
> infantilizing way - and my pedagogical style which seeks to engender
> understanding and data recall by provoking students to engage,
> synthesize or reject (but still remember and understand) new material on
> the basis of
> their already rich and contradictory experiences, knowledges, values and
> naturalizations. I know that many people - my wife included - are quite
> good at step-wise data, understanding, analysis, synthesis and
> evaluation
> methods... I believe, however, that such pedagogical commitments tend
> (not
> universally, but strongly) to produce rote and utilitarian approaches to
> the life of the mind, social/environmental justice and political
> economic
> power/lessness.
>
> I want my students to find learning encompassingly erotic rather than
> mechanically reproductive - anyone wonder anymore why I like Haraway(?)
> -
> inspiring rather than drudgery and No Child Left Behind, the Race to the
> Top and every enactment of Bloom's taxonomy stikes me as leaving young
> people in a uninspiring and depoliticized world of mechanical
> drudgery... what a nightmare.'' Alan Rudy
>
> CG
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
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>
-- ********************************************************* Alan P. Rudy Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work Central Michigan University 124 Anspach Hall Mt Pleasant, MI 48858 517-881-6319