The original Bloom’s taxonomy include Knowledge, Comprehension, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. I was introduced to this when I was in college and I must admit it was not of much help to me in planning my math lessons. I just couldn’t fit it. The pyramid image was not of help at all and I think even created the now much ingrained deductive method of teaching. I think teachers must have unconsciously looked at it as a food pyramid so they give a dose of those of knowledge-acquisition activities first before providing activities that will engage students in higher-level processes
Lorin Anderson, a former student of Bloom, revisited the cognitive domain in the learning taxonomy in the mid-nineties and made some important changes: changing the names in the six categories from noun to verb forms and slightly rearranging them. The new taxonomy reflects a more active form of thinking of Creating, Evaluating, Analyzing, Understanding, and Remembering. I also like the inverted pyramid as long as it is not viewed like there is a strict hierarchy of the categories. In fact in my own experience I just make sure that all these are covered in a lesson as much as possible. The way to do this is to teach mathematics through problem solving or engage students in mathematical investigations. Still, the best framework will still be one tailored to mathematics. For me its my list of Mathematical Habits of Mind.
In searching for Bloom’s taxonomy I came across the image below – Bloom’s taxonomy for iPad. It’s a collection of iPad apps classified according to Bloom’s taxonomy. I found it cute so I’m including it here. This will come in handy once I have my own iPad and start creating math lesson for this device.
There is also such a thing as Learning Pyramid which compares how we learn things and the retention rate in our brain after 2-3 weeks.
Click here for source of image of Bloom’s Taxonomy for iPads.
