I've spent relatively little time with the taxonomy, but in my experience it's become a real shibboleth in higher ed (while I presume it has had that status for much longer in K-12). I admit I find this really distressing. Here the only conversation is in the cognitive domain. If someone invokes it, your job is to get in line rather than challenge, and it's not at all clear that anyone invoking understands it any better than I do. In fact, most of the time less so. The other thing I notice is that people use the taxonomy to talk about how we need to get students doing more analysis and evaluation, or we're not "working with the whole taxonomy," and then recall and comprehension get short shrift because they're so much less important than synthesis. But the long and the short of it is that if I can't frame my teaching in terms of the taxonomy, I'm an irresponsible teacher. It's essentially the same point Powers makes and that Shore/Wright make even more strongly about audits and assessment, that we have to render ourselves auditable. I was in our meeting yesterday about a new gen ed, and we just can't have any "objectives" that are not assessable, so this means they have to be framed in terms that render them "assessable," and this actually alters the content and direction of the goals. I can't see what about it is *not* pernicious.
On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 6:48 AM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks Chuck, but I just posted it last night... so you didn't really miss
> it...
> A
>
> 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
> >
> >
> >
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
>
>
> --
> *********************************************************
> Alan P. Rudy
> Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
> Central Michigan University
> 124 Anspach Hall
> Mt Pleasant, MI 48858
> 517-881-6319
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>