Understanding How To Apply Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy

Moving Toward Complete Alignment In Social Studies

Understanding how to use the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (RBT) to align classroom instruction and assessment to the new social studies essential standards.

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Today’s Presentation Will Assist Participants With:

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Pre-Assessment

Pre-Assessment

AnswerThe RBT Taxonomy Table should be used to help determine the learning experiences and assessment tasks for which you ask students to participate.

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Question # 1

How should you use the table below in instruction and assessment?

Pre-AssessmentQuestion #2

True or False? The assessment below is aligned to the clarifying objective.CO: Summarize the change in cultures, everyday life, and status of indigenous American Indian groups in

North Carolina before and after European exploration.

Assessment:The lives of American Indians were changed when Europeans came to the New World . Tell how farming, hunting and everyday life within their tribes changed for the American Indians.

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Answer

FalseAn Appropriate Assessment:Have the student read a passage that describes changes in American Indians’ culture and lives.

Read the passage above and write a few sentences describing how life changed for American Indians as a result of European exploration of the New World.

NC’s New Lens: Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (RBT)

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Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (RBT) Provides a common language for all

curriculum areas by indicating what a learning or assessment task was intended to measure by cognitive type

by type of knowledge

Provides a framework that may “help teachers plan and deliver appropriate instruction, design valid assessment tasks and strategies, and ensure that instruction and assessment are aligned with the objectives.” (p.xxii)

The Alignment Question

How does one ensure that objectives, instruction and assessment are consistent with one another?

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The Structure of Curriculum

Esse

ntial

Stand

ards/C

larify

ing Obje

ctive

sClassroom Assessments

Learning Experiences/Performance Tasks

Materials and EquipmentImage of students with globe. Image no. 3Q1675 Photo by  Will & Deni McIntyre

Students

The Importance of Alignment

“Alignment is an even stronger predictor of student achievement on standardized tests than are socioeconomic status, gender,

race, and teacher effect.” ~ Elmore & Rothman, 1999: Mitchell, 1998; Wishnick,1989

Content Alignment “Does the teacher teach and

assess the factual, conceptual, and procedural knowledge

outlined in the curriculum?”What is Written…

What is Taught…

What is Tested…

“Do the students get to work

and think at the level the

curriculum prescribes?”

Cognitive Type Alignment

Context Alignment “Are the parameters of the

assessment reasonably similar to

the parameters of the instruction?”

Learning occurs best when there is a purposeful process that creates complete

alignment.

Directions:

By yourself, classify the 13 original colonies according to which were New England, Middle or Southern. (2 minutes )

Let’s Perform A Quick ActivityThirteen Original Colonies1.Virginia2.Rhode Island3.Georgia4.New York5.Delaware6.New Jersey7.North Carolina8.South Carolina9.Pennsylvania10.Massachusetts11.New Hampshire12.Maryland13.Connecticut

Directions:

Using the map place the 13 colonies with their correct alphabet and indicate numerically the chronological order each was established from 1 to 13. (2 minutes )

Now, Let’s Assess

How Did You Do?

The Cognitive Dimension Is The Alignment For Standards &

AssessmentThe RBT Verbs

RememberRetrieving relevant knowledge from long term memory… (verbatim, unchanged by student)

Cognitive Processes: 1.1 Recognizing (identifying)

1.2 Recalling (retrieving)

Remembering is essential for meaningful learning and problem-solving.

It is used in more complex tasks.

Recall Or Recognition?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1RjI7G8rFw&feature=related

Question

What is the effect if the teacher does not clarify the

differences between RECOGNIZE and RECALL when

preparing an assessment?

AnswerThe assessment will be misaligned with the objective and possibly

instruction.

The line of demarcation among the 6 cognitive categories is REMEMBER

Remember rote learning

All others meaningful learning (transfer)

Rote learning requires students to remember

what they learned.

Transfer requires students to remember but

also make sense of what they have learned.

Understand

Constructing meaning from instructional messages,

including oral, written and graphic communication

Cognitive Processes: 2.1 Interpreting 2.2 Exemplifying 2.3 Classifying 2.4 Summarizing 2.5 Inferring 2.6 Comparing 2.7 Explaining

Understand cognitive processes are the most represented in state standards

More cognitive processes are associated with this category than any other category

The learner grasps the meaning of information by interpreting and translating what has been learned.

An Assessment Example

Cognitive Processes

Clarifying Objective Example Assessment

Summarize CE.PFL.2.2 Summarize various types of fraudulent solicitation and business practices.

Read the following article:http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/frauds_and_swindling/ponzi_schemes/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier

or

Watch the following clip:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsSGZezvuSg Summarize in three sentences or less the fraudulent business practice described in either the article or video clip.

An Assessment ExampleCognitive Processes

Clarifying Objective Example Assessment

Explain WH.6.1 Explain how new ideas and theories of the universe altered political thought and affected economic and social conditions.

Construct a cause and effect graphic organizer explaining how a scientific or enlightened thinker’s ideas impacted political, economic, or social conditions in 17TH & 18TH century America. 

Cognitive Processes: 4.1 Differentiating [e.g. the relevant from the irrelevant parts.]

4.2 Organizing [Identifying the elements of a communication or situation and recognizing how they fit together in a coherent structure. The student builds systematic and coherent connections among pieces of presented information.]

4.3 Attributing [the underlying purpose or perspective – reading between the lines.]

Analyze Break material into its constituent parts and determine how

the parts relate to one another and to an overall purpose.

Examples of Assessing AnalyzeCognitive

Processes Of Analyze

Example Learning Objective

Example Assessment

Differentiating

Organizing

Attributing

The student will distinguish the major and minor points in research reports.

Circle the main points in an archeological report on an ancient Mayan city.

The student will structure a

historical description into

evidence for and against a

particular explanation.

Write an outline that shows which facts, in the book Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization, support and which facts do not support the conclusion that the decline of the civilization was caused by influences of the Europeans.

The student will determine

the point of view of the

author of an essay on a

controversial topic.

Determine if a report on the decline of the Mayan rainforest was written from a pro-environmental or pro-economic point of view.

Cognitive Processes: 5.1 Checking [testing for

internal consistencies or fallacies

in an operation or product –

check as you go along]

5.2 Critiquing [judging a product

or operation based on externally

imposed criteria and standards.]

EvaluateMake judgments based on criteria and standards.

Examples of Assessing Evaluate

Cognitive Processes Of

Evaluate

Example Learning Objective

Example Assessment

Checking

Critiquing

The student will check for internal inconsistencies in persuasive messages.

Watch a television advertisement for a political candidate and point out any logical flaws in the persuasive message.

The student will judge the merits of a product, effect or occurrence based on specified or agreed upon criteria and standards.

Evaluate key points in a

political candidate’s

speech in terms of the

potential impact each point

may have on citizens.

When you combine the verbs (cognitive processes)

with the nouns (knowledge) you end up with a

two-dimensional table.

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Analyze colonization in terms of the desire for

access to resources and markets as well as the

consequences on indigenous cultures,

population, and environment .

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Construct maps, charts, and graphs to

explain data about geographic phenomena.

Directions:1.Working with a group or a partner, determine where the clarifying objective you are working with lies on the Taxonomy Table.

2.With your group or partner come up with a classroom assessment for the clarifying objective.

(5 minutes )

Choose to work with either the middle or high school objective.

Middle School6.H.2.1 Explain how invasions, conquests, and migrations affected various civilizations, societies and regions (e.g. Mongol

invasion, The Crusades, the Peopling of the Americas and Alexander the Great).

High SchoolWH.5.2 Explain the causes and effects of exploration and expansion.

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Your Turn To Practice

Some Conclusions About RBT To solve shared problems in instruction and

assessment, we need a shared system of classification (an agreed upon taxonomy).

That shared taxonomy provides a common way to ensure that instruction and assessment are aligned with the objectives and a common language to talk about them.

Without a shared taxonomy, learning, instruction and assessment have the potential to be all over the place.

RBT is our shared

taxonomy!

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