Sunday, June 25, 2006

Beyond Blooms taxonomy

Bloom's taxonomy has been useful tool in developing educational tasks for the past 40 years. It was based on an underlying assumption that the mind behaves like a filing cabinet. This assumption is being challenged as the implications of learning in the digital age is explored further.
As an alternative, Bereiter and Scardamalia (1998) suggested 7 levels of approach to knowledge.

1- Knowledge as individuated mental states. Knowing that one person may know things that someone else does not.
2- knowledge as itemizable mental content. Telling knowledge in the order in which it comes to mind.
3- knowledge as representation. Telling knowledge taking into account the listener/ reader.
4-knowledge as viewable from different perspectives.
5- knowledge as personal artifacts. Viewing oneself as constructing knowledge.
6- knowledge as improvable personal artifacts. Viewing a theory in terms of what it can and can't do, what its strengths are and where it needs improvement.
7- knowledge as semi-autonomous artifacts. knowledge objects, like other constructed objects, take on a life of their own and can be considered independently of their personal relevance.
Full paper.

I find this a useful schema when thinking about teaching for understanding, particularly of conceptual understanding.