Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge
Thank you for your feedback and questions about my recent post on Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge. Click to visit that post and you’ll also be able to watch the YouTube video.
I received a question (you can email me at vlopez@treetopsecret.com) from Suzette. She asks about applying Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge. I wrote up this response for her and I was inspired to create a cheat-sheet with a 10-Step Process for Applying Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge. Be sure to Download the cheat-sheet and add it to your lesson planning book, bulletin board, or any place that will catch your eye as you’re teaching.
Here’s my email reply to Suzette:
Suzette, you asked a great question about applying Blooms and DOK. It sounds like the book of interviews you mentioned is informational text. If so, you might find my article on informational texts to be of some help – the title is 5 Game Winning Plays for Tackling Informational Text.
You can find the article at the ASCD website – here is the link: http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol9/903-lopez.aspx
The related infographic is at this link: http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/siteASCD/publications/ascdexpress/9.3_lopez.pdf
When planning any lesson it’s important to start with the standard or learning objective.
The objective will guide you as you select the resources and tools or manipulatives for the lesson.
In your case, it sounds like you have selected or your curriculum requires a specific resource which is a book based on interviews. I’ll keep this book of interviews in mind as I continue…
Blooms is a tool for instruction… One approach is to use the verbs in Blooms, then progress through the taxonomy from the REMEMBER category all the way up to the CREATE category. Keep in mind this is only one approach to take, because it is possible to begin in any category (for many teachers this takes practice and experience – it requires a good understanding of the learner’s abilities and a full toolkit of resources and instructional strategies).
When beginning with the REMEMBER category, I would look at the verbs or cognitive processes which are related to the REMEMBER level. The verbs are Recall and Recognize, therefore, the lesson plan would include activities, instruction, and questioning to help students Recall some elements, facts, or terms in the interviews. The activities and instructional strategy will vary based on grade level, but students are working on learning new definitions and/or remembering names or details from the interviews.
When checking to see if the students learned the basics here, which is a form of assessment, you would apply Depth of Knowledge (DOK is a tool for assessment). Here your DOK level would be a 1, because students only have to Recall the answer to a given question.
The test/assessment would include questions similar to the following:
– In the interview between ____ and ____, what is the meaning of the word _____?
– During the ____________ interview, who did _____?
– During the ____________ interview, what did _____ do when _____?
Instruction would continue for each category until the learning objective has been reached. Here is a summary of the process:
1 – Identify the standard or learning objective
2 – Select the Blooms category
3 – Identify the verbs/cognitive processes identified with that category
4 – Plan instruction, activities, and questions with those cognitive processes in mind
5 – Students receive instruction, work through the activities, and answer questions
6 – Select the DOK level for the assessment
7 – Use the verbs/processes for that level to design the questions and the test format
8 – Students take an assessment where the questions are aligned to the instruction they received
9 – Students master the learning objective and move ahead to the next objective or students do not master the learning objective and require remediation
10 – Continue working with the same objective, but advance to the next level in Bloom’s and DOK
Wrap-Up
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Please let me know if I can clarify the information or if you have any questions.
Thank you for your support!
Veronica
Veronica Lopez,
Educational Consultant
vlopez@treetopsecret.com