Bloom's Taxonomy & 3 Connections - Part 2
In my October Blog Post I started connecting the Maker Process / Maker Attitude to three lectures that I attended in October 2016. As I mentioned in the post, in my mind those three lectures related to the process of teaching and mentoring at the Foundry Makerspace. I began to see 3 connections that made sense in 21st Century Learning. Last month, in the November Blog Post, spoke of the topic of the Mind's Eye. This month, I wanted to look at the topic of Bloom's Taxonomy.
If you are an educator, you know this term. Bloom's Taxonomy is a framework of educational goals. It was developed in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom and collaborators Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl. This framework has been used over the years by educators as a means to define educational objectives. They range from simple to complex, and concrete to abstract. This is typically demonstrated visually in the form of a pyramid.
All of these categories are sometimes condensed down to:
Knowledge (cognitive)
Skills (psychomotor)
Attitudes (affective)
This group is known as the KSA and can be used during self reflection / analysis to better understand a career outlook. They can also help one guide their own learning process by understanding gaps in growth through life.
Bloom's Taxonomy has been revisited over the years and in it's most current form shows a shifting of the top two categories. What is interesting is that "creating" is really in the same realm as making.
Storing this information in the back of my mind all of these years in teaching at the college level and also mentoring Middle School and High School students, I kept trying to put my finger on the issue of getting to the point of making. It seemed like a big effort to climb up the pyramid to achieve the level of "creating." I kept asking myself how one could continue to have the wherewithal to push through the lower levels. It was the necessity of mastering the lower levels that may inhibit digging deeper to create.
This is when I stumbled upon a 9/6/2014 Blog Post by Maggie Hos-McGrane. She was going through the concept of flipping the Bloom's Taxonomy Pyramid to address the very issue I was questioning. She had tried this method in her classes in collapsing the top three (Creating / Evaluating / Analyzing,) which allowed students to test out things out through creating things. This was experiential learning. I saw this as the heart of being a Maker. One just tries something and evaluate what worked and what did not. This is the stuff of The Scientific Method and Design Thinking. This connected with my education as an architect. Back in undergrad our approach in the design studio was to test all types of solutions. I later understood that this is the difference between Divergent and Convergent thinking. The first was about seeking all types of solution. The second involved the process of narrowing them down to one final solution.
When I look at the flipped pyramid I believe there is much I believe there is much truth in what happens in a makerspace. The type of learning is free flowing and student led. This is not to say that it is without rules. There are rules and guides in the process, but I believe the student is more cognizant of what is unknown, and has to be comfortable with not knowing. I remember that this was difficult for many of my fellow classmates to deal with in architecture school. The ambiguity and unknown can be uneasy. It takes some sense of one's self to develop a methodology to push through uncertainty. As Thomas Alva Edison is known for saying...
"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. Accordingly, a 'genius' is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework."
I believe that it really does take persistence to work towards a goal in an makerspace effort.
In the new year I'll be wrapping up this series with Part 3 regarding the concept of "Third Space / Third Place." This concept was coined by the urban sociologist, Ray Oldenburg. The writer Robert Putnam has used that term throughout his book Bowling Alone, which looks at the changing social capital in our communities.
STEAM Making @ Camp Curtin Academy Middle School
SCIENCE:
Trout in the Classroom
The trout continue to grow in Room 308. They are now at the beginning of the Fingerling Stage. The students are now monitoring the temperature, water levels, pH, Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates. During the feedings Ms. Estright discusses the life cycle of the fish.
TECHNOLOGY:
Robotics Club
The Robotics Club did not have any meetings through December. All involved look to start again in January. This will include a Robotics Mixer combining Harrisburg University, SciTech High School, and Middle School students for a robotics build. A final date has not been confirmed.
ARTS:
AV Studio Morning Broadcasting
The Camp Curtin News Network and the "AV Crew" is doing really well as they progress in learning all the 8 positions in the Broadcasting Studio. In January we are planning to visit a local news network to see some of the behind the scenes process. During the spring we are planning to work on some film projects with the club to build their portfolio of creative editing and filmmaking. This will include stories and interviews of the Camp Curtin Academy school community.
GENERAL:
Leader in Me Banners
One long project that has been completed at CCA was the Leader in Me Banners. These were started in 2015 during a Into the Streets project and worked on through a United Way Day of Caring. During December they were hung in the hallway East of the Auditorium. It is great to see the work of volunteers and a way to help reinforce the 7 Habits.
STEAM Making @ SciTech High School
TECHNOLOGY:
Scibots Robotics Team
The robotics team is gearing up for the January, 7th Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Qualifying Tournament at Oxford Area High School. Because of the focus of the SciTech students, at this competition there will be two groups representing the school. The two robots have two different approaches to their design. We'll have an update in the January Blog to present which one was more successful in scoring.
Don't forget that the 2/25/2017 Pennsylvania State FTC Championship will be held locally at John Harris High School.
If you wish to volunteer to help with that competition, please visit this FTC LINK.