Bloom's Taxonomy and technology in education

Bloom's Taxonomy has been a cornerstone of education since the 1950's.  It is a sound concept that has created success in student learning.  So why should we change it?

Students today are different than students from past generations.  The generation we are teaching today lives in a different world than we do.  Some of the things I realize when I talk with my children and my students are: These students don't have memories of going to the airport and waiting at the gate for a relative to come visit.  They don't know what a card catalog, cassette tape, or floppy disk is.  They have never had to wait to find the answer to a question because they have never lived in a world without Google.  They don't have to actually wait in a waiting room because they have devices to get on and entertain themselves.  Same for car trips.  These students don't know what it's like to stretch the phone cord as far as it will go to try to find some privacy for a phone call.  They didn't grow up in the world I did where my parents thought that only drug dealers had pagers and cell phones.  They have only reruns of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and don't know who Donny and Marie are (McBride, 2018)!


Some of the things I didn't realize they DO have until I read The Mindset List (McBride, 2018):  They have never lived in a world without school shootings.  9/11 is something out of a history book, but terrorists are a constant threat. People have always inhabited space.   Vines are entertaining video clips, not plants that climb.  Instant gratification.  Reality TV.   Technology is everywhere- from a camera in your mouth at the dentist to texts from teachers and homework turned in online. 

When I think about all of these differences, I realize that the way I have viewed technology is evolving as my students do.  To our students, technology is an essential part of every day life.  It is a tool they use for entertainment, education, communication, and creation.  If we can learn to harness technology, we can learn how to reach our students on a level that will draw them in and allow us to extract from them the creativity, critical-thinking, and collaboration that technology itself stems from.  I have found with every step I take further into the technological world- and some of them have been very big leaps and scary climbs- my students become more engaged and produce ever increasingly thoughtful work.

With this in mind, the way we use technology in schools becomes very important.  The mindset and background of our students explains why it is so beneficial to add technology into our schools and use it often.  However, I am not supporting the idea of using technology for technology's sake.  Technology is not the foundation of education; in fact, in a world without technology, our students would be just as successful without it, as previous generations have shown.  However, as we have just seen, this is a world saturated with technology, and our students will be more successful if we use the tools of their world to teach them.

So, back to our original question.  If Bloom's Taxonomy has been so successful, why should we change it?

In my recent reading, I learned how Bloom's Taxonomy has actually been adapting and changing since its inception in the 1950's.  It started out using nouns to describe the six levels, then changed to verbs (this is where I think I was trained in it), and now it has morphed into several different ideas including cogs, a matrix, a mandala and a flipped pyramid (Common Sense Media, n.d.).  Now there is even a body of work discussing Bloom's digital taxonomy. I think the fact that a cornerstone of American education is constantly morphing and changing to fit the current needs of our students is a strong indication of the importance of teaching our learners in ways they will best learn.  Are you on board?  If you are, here are some great pieces I found to help easily connect technology and Bloom's Taxonomy.

One of the most useful pieces of information I have found in reading about Bloom's digital taxonomy is a website that connects apps to the levels of Bloom's taxonomy.  This is a very helpful, easy to navigate website that will show educators the apps to use for each level of Bloom's in a way our students will respond to (Schrock, 2019).  Her webpage is aptly named Bloomin Apps and is arranged in a very user-friendly format, as seen here:

Another useful piece is a table showing "digital activities" that connect to the levels of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy, found here.  See below for one example:

Many of the apps we use in education are free, and many have a cost- often a yearly membership.  I know several teachers who pay these costs because the benefit to their students' success makes it worth it to them.  If you find an app with a cost, before purchasing it, I would suggest asking an administrator (or whoever is over technology purchases) if they would be willing to purchase the app because "name of app here will serve as an amazing tool to engage our students to get them to insert name of Bloom's level here by insert name of the verbs and digital activities here."  I think you will be surprised at how often you will be supported.  Our administrators are in the same boat we are; we are all trying to catch up to the technology and find ways to best support our students.

I have thought about why this matters to me as a librarian, and the answer is simple.  Just as educators must adapt to a changing nature in our students, librarians must adapt to a changing nature in the ways libraries are used.  Just as Bloom's has been changing over its lifespan, so have libraries.  Today, I don't have journals, encyclopedias and atlases in my library, I have a subscription to a service that gives us access to current articles, encyclopedias, and atlases on devices across our school.  I don't have students coming to the library to do research out of books or that need to learn how to use the card catalog.  I have students who need to learn information literacy, digital/media literacy, research skills, coding skills, how to be good digital citizens and how to stay safe on the internet.  As a librarian, this is the role I am taking on as we move deeper into this technological world. 

So really, not only should we continue to adapt our beliefs about education, we should adapt the tools we use to achieve them and always be open to questioning our practice.

Sources:

Churches, A. (2008, May 26). Bloom's digital taxonomy. Retrieved from http://www.ccconline.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Churches_2008_DigitalBloomsTaxonomyGuide.pdf

Common Sense Education.  (n.d.). Bloom's digital taxonomy. Retrieved from https://www.commonsense.org/education/videos/blooms-digital-taxonomy

McBride, T. (2018, August 20). The mindset list: Class of 2022.  Retrieved from http://themindsetlist.com/2018/08/beloit-college-mindset-list-class-2022/

Quevillon, K. (2018, October 18). Blooms revised taxonomy: 3 ways to reshape the pyramid [blog post].  Retrieved from https://tophat.com/blog/blooms-revised-taxonomy-pyramid/

Schrock, K. (2019, May 28). Bloomin' apps. Retrieved from https://www.schrockguide.net/bloomin-apps.html