Get Your Students Hired
Ward,
This is an excellent method for enabling your students to apply the information that they have learned in class. Through the case study assignment, they can begin to visualize how their learning will be used in a professional situation.
Tremayne Simpson
What i like to do is give my students a life situation. Such as you are the Chef in a large hotel. It's New Years eve and you realize no the Blackeyed peas did bot get ordered for the buffet. How will you handle the situation? I want to see if they can put together a plan that will solve the problem. The correct answer of course is to have a good working relationship with your purveyor who will deliver them to you in his own car or to know a chef in your association who has extra.
Incorporating Blooms questioning techniques into your sectional review, or even your daily review should be able to give you good indicators of whether or not your presentation of the information is being retained or better yet there is actual comprehension of the presented information, and if you are really lucky some students may even be able to demonstrate practical application with few mistakes. I use this method of questioning the students to see how much of the information I presented that day has been retained and depending on the primary “sensory modalities†I was using that day Is how I will try to tailor tomorrows discussion. After watching the trend in comprehension for a couple of days I believe I have a pretty good feel for the best way to reach the largest percentage of the class efficiently and effectively.
Since reviewing the Learning Taxonomy section I am planning on reviewing my current learnig objectives in the courses I teach and rewriting them to include more of the Taxonomy levels. Most of my objectives seem to fall in the Level 1 "knowlegde" terminology and I want to include more levels to assure proper mastery of the information.
As an instructor in a culinary school, factual knowledge and procedural knowledge are the 'bread and butter' of my daily instruction. For example, if the lesson is about stock making we study the the methods and techniques used to make good stocks. When we proceed to use the stocks to make sauces, I show my students the relationship of elements to each other. They see how cooking is composed of solid foundations upon which, French Cuisine is built. I constantly ask questions seeking their understanding. I verbally test for conceptual knowledge. As we must move on, I know that there are some students who are not able to grasp some concepts and for them I privately recommend our very strong tutoring program.
Our organization uses Bloom's taxonomy. We use quizzes, test and small individual and group projects. I can keep my students updated by explaining the accompanying level of learning taxonomy throughout the course.
I use the standards as set forth by the college for teaching writing. With each assignment, I attach a rubric, as well as the objectives. I collaborate with another instructor who teaches the same courses to ensure that we are working toward the same goal and that our objectives and assessments are consistent.
Blooms Taxonomy is a great tool that helps me
create assignments to ensure student growth to the
next level of understanding course curriculum.
Lynn,
In general, many instructors have used the Learning Taxonomy without realizing it. This means that their courses are planned within a natural, hierarchal structure of learning and assessment. The taxonomy provides an excellent basis for understanding how learning progression occur and the expectations that a part of each level of understanding.
Tremayne Simpson
In reading the criteria for taxonomy of lesson plans, I find that I have already been using these without actually realizing it. I use multiple assessments to progress my students through each level of taxonomy. Review games are a big assessor. They are non-threatening because they are just for fun, and they allow me to progress them from just having the knowledge to implementing it by posing critical thinking scenarios in a relaxed environment. Once they are able to do this in that situation, I know they are ready for some "real life" high level assignments or exams.
Learning Taxonomy is important because it sets a progressive level for your students to learn the subject. I teach motorcycle electrical and use learning taxonomy first by making sure that the students know what the components are, next by determining if they understand how the components function and how each work within the system, finally by applying what they have learned to diagnose electrical problems within a system.
We are currently updating our lesson plans to increase the level of taxonomy. This includes multiple educational learning exercises and the use of student planning teams.
This will be very helpful, especially in my mathematics classes. In math we first learn about some tools that will help us as we move further in depth in certain areas. This would be the factual knowledge level. Next we prove that we have developed a level of expertise with those tools and understand how they will be used in the future. This would be the conceptual knowledge level. We then use these tools to solve more difficult problems. This would be the procedural knowledge level. Finally we use the tools to solve problems that are directly related to the student's major area of study. This is the metacognitive knowledge level.
I have not ever heard of the Learning Taxonomy, so it was interesting to learn about it. I think I will lean more towards a pre-test of materials, to gauge what students know.
I feel that I have been using taxonomy as long as I have been teaching, I just never really thought about it in this way. I have the unique position in that I have taught every class in the program from the very beginning all the way through to the final course before the students head out to externships. Throughout the program I have students at every level. I have come to really enjoy more and more teaching the beginning level classes however, because I find the first stages of learning to be so fun to witness.
Great information! I am looking forward to closer analyzation on my upcoming classes.
-e
I find that life experiences have played a big role in my teaching. Using a group section in the mist of a review section works. They are now on a level where they are more relax, and focus. if i have questions from one student about something we have already went over I pull the class back together and revisit the question in another way.It also gives clearty to others that maybe would never speak up.
Tom,
Typically, do you find that your students are ready for the more advanced stages of learning taxonomy, once they have completed your course?
Tremayne Simpson
As most of my students are first year, and I teach intro courses...most of them fall in to factual knowledge stage. My lesson plans are pre-determined and there are course assessments planned throughout. That said, I have the ability to place quizzes or writing assessments throughout which I tend to do on a weekly basis. This gives me a better temperature check. The online quiz/test format only allows for me to see if students can read. They are not timed and so a student could essentially complete via open book. Taking that in to consideration...I want to know that a student "gets it." To do so, I often add additional writing assignments which will make them "think" about the topic and offer a true understanding through reflection and comparison.