Bloom, Gardner and Pirozzo

In ETL 501, we're looking at the educational foundation for research. Bloom's Taxonomy has been suggested as a common starting point for learning, thinking and research. One of the forum posts referred to the combined Gardner/Blooms Matrix and the work of Ralph Pirozzo. I have attended two workshops with Ralph and I find his approach and his published material very useful. However, I always take the time to make the observation that combining Bloom and Gardner was originally set out in a book by Helen McGrath and Toni Noble, entitled Seven Ways at Once. The first of which was published in 1997. No doubt they will update these at some stage to include the eighth, Naturalist, intelligence. The McGrath and Noble books contain matrices of General Classroom Tasks and Starting Points. You can also find Blooms units and these Multiple Intelligence for a range of school stages and subjects (including Maths) in the TalentEd publication from the University of New England (UNE).

The point of these expanded grid is to remind us that, as James has said in the notes, that different students learn in different ways and that reference material is more than printed text. So the 42-grid reminds us that an image or an animation or even a site with sound is an important alternative for some learning styles.

By way of interest or maybe clarification here are three variations of the Blooms Taxonomy levels. I've used rows as there is no formatting available to make columns. The terms in the second row may help clarify the meaning of each level.

Bloom: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation

Mean: Remembering, Understanding, Using, Breaking Down, Creating, Judging

Pohl: Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analysing, Evaluating, Creating

You will note that the third row, by Australian author Michael Pohl (who has written lots of useful Thinking Skills books), has the "top" two levels swapped around. An interesting variation that is worth pondering if and when you have time.

In some ways Bloom would have expected that students moved beyond an external reference for synthesis and evaluation to their own thinking and creative skills. However, as we have found, finding a reputable scholar or researcher who has published findings to support your thinking. So Google Scholar, or the Research Assistance section of AskScott or Newscan for the older students OR Study Search Australia for both Primary and Secondary Students would be useful for the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.

Here's a link to Study Search

http://www.studysearch.com.au/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx

The Six Thinking Hats and the Thinking Caps (which I think are Pohl's variation but I could be wrong) overlap with Bloom in that they separate facts (White) from Evaluation (Positive and Negative, Yellow and Black) and Action (Green. Creativity). They also include the affective or emotional aspects (Feelings, Red) and metacognition (thinking about thinking, Blue).