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The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.
Those objectives are maps, are way markers, describe them as guardrails to keep the assessment
Narrator:fair. This is the Transform Your Teaching podcast. The Transform Your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.
Ryan:Hello, and welcome to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. In today's episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles chat with Jason Frieling, one of our instructional designers in the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University. They discuss Bloom's taxonomy and its relevance for learning objectives.
Ryan:Thanks for joining us.
Rob:Well, Dr. Pyles, today we are taking a break from our stirring motivation series because we've had a few questions about objectives. Mhmm. Specifically, why do we use Bloom's taxonomy revised as a framework that we put before teachers when we're doing design work at CTL? So I thought it'd be a good time given the fact that we've already done some work here on the podcast to bring this back up. So we've done some objective series back in August '23, and we introduced the DRIVE acronym in part of our back to the basics series.
Rob:And we also kinda dealt with it again in
Jared:November. November 23 was the last time.
Rob:Right. We had Dr. Ye in here with us, and we were talking about advanced objectives and some of the things that he walks through.
Jared:Yeah. So it's been, like, two and a half years since then.
Rob:It has been. Today, we have another one of our colleagues in with us. Let's let our guest introduce himself.
Jason Frieling:My name is Jason Freeling. I work here currently at Center for Teaching and Learning. I was a public school educator for twenty four years in in Michigan where I attempted to teach English to seventh and eighth graders as well as, eventually, ten, eleven, and twelfth grade students in various capacities and manner.
Rob:He's done a bit of a deep dive here recently into Bloom's taxonomy and Bloom's taxonomy revised to be accurate. But you've looked at a whole Plethora. Plethora of different things. So I thought this would be a good time to take a little break, kinda just refresh why do we use these.
Jared:Yeah. Why Blooms? Why Blooms? Why is Blooms seemingly the one that's, like, top of the pecking order when it comes to objectives? And we've brought in our friend Jason who also could double as Batman.
Jared:His voice is fantastic. So, Jason, tell us about your study on objectives. Why Bloom's? Why Bloom's? Well, that's
Jason Frieling:an excellent question, which I'm not gonna answer right away.
Jared:Wow. Thank you.
Rob:I'm talking about the cliffhanger.
Jason Frieling:Yep. In fact, I wanna back up, in history a little bit. My first teaching assignment, had a whole twelve hours to prepare for was a long term sub position in eleventh grade English junior students. And I was handed the book, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and, a binder. This was back then, some of the copies in it were blue and some were actually from a Xerox copier.
Jason Frieling:And I was given the task of teaching, and, this was before any discussion of objectives were commonplace in any way, shape or form. And so, I entered that classroom with all twelve hours of prep, plus two other preps I had to prepare for and launched into, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The only way I knew how, which is how my teachers did it, which was basically to read the chapter, talk about the chapter, quiz on the chapter, and not necessarily in that order all the time.
Rob:Quiz on the chapter, then read
Jared:Anyway, the
Jason Frieling:so that's what I did. And not only did, The Monster in Frankenstein kill a number of people, but I think I killed the love of for that book, by doing that chapter after chapter. And and, because I had no objective for, teaching that book, why were we delving into that, book? What were what was the purpose? What was I trying to do?
Jason Frieling:And and now looking back on it, I shutter at the missed opportunities because I did not have, a destination. I did not have the end in mind when I began. And so just that plug again for why we do objectives in the first place is because we need to know where we're going and and how are we gonna get there. So, that that designing, that that with the end in mind, the mantra here, Center for Teaching and Learning, certainly is living and active, in my mind as as we talk about this. So why why blooms?
Jason Frieling:Well, in education, we all know that, the product or the process of educating and learning is not simple or, straightforward. There's a lot of, lot of things going on because we are made in the image of God. We have we have complexity and in that processes is is not simple. And these taxonomies, attempt to organize what happens, in the learner or in the classroom or in the process of learning and talk about it and organize it. And, in my studies, I kinda have made a taxonomy of taxonomies.
Jason Frieling:Oh, cool. If you saw a tax I call it the tax tax.
Jared:Or the tax on inception. Or the tax to rule
Rob:them all.
Jason Frieling:The taxonomy within the taxonomy.
Jared:Yes. The the wheel within the wheel of taxonomies.
Jason Frieling:There there you go. There there you go.
Jared:See, Jason, you've never been on this podcast before. What we like to do is ruin people's ideas, Rob
Jason Frieling:and I. We like to take
Jared:what are great ideas and just completely ruin them. You seem to be successful. So,
Jason Frieling:Bloom's revised well, Bloom started out the original taxonomy only included nouns, and so there was nothing going on. And so the revised incorporated verbs, that And the intent is, to be able to be measurable and, attainable for the student. And that measuring part is probably the most, important aspect of Bloom's. Bloom's, to kind of put it in a metaphor because that's how I, like to describe things. If you wanna think about a vacation, you know, it's it's the the route, the stops, and the destination.
Jason Frieling:So that's blooms. It's it's having having that plan that the the end in mind again in the the details of of the trip, you will.
Jared:So let let me ask you this. Why do you think Bloom's was the go to? Like, there are others, right? Yes. Maybe we should go there first.
Jared:What are some of the other taxonomies that haven't really lasted? Like, survival I feel like it's survival of the fittest when it comes to taxonomies in this case. What are the other ones, and why did Blooms end up being number one?
Jason Frieling:Well, part of it is because of the task that these taxonomies, are trying to organize for. So for instance, another taxonomy that is they're not gone, they're just used in different areas of education. Okay. And so for our purposes, designing courses and preparing them for other faculty, Bloom's fits well for what we do.
Rob:The general purpose framework?
Jason Frieling:General purpose framework. Right. Okay. Another example, is is the solo, taxonomy, not the Han solo, but just
Jared:Thank just you for making sure that distinction was made.
Jason Frieling:You're welcome. That's
Rob:exactly where my mind went.
Jason Frieling:Yeah. Well, anyway, solo means structure of the observed learning outcomes. And so what that does is tries to measure, observe the development of the student's journey from knowing nothing, to being able to, theorize, what it is. And really, that taxonomy has more application in like a programmatic situation where you're looking at a entire scope and sequence
Jared:See. Okay.
Rob:Of courses, not just one course.
Jason Frieling:Not just one course.
Jared:Like a program level, like you said, programmatic look at a student's path towards graduation, for example.
Jason Frieling:Correct. Correct.
Jared:Okay.
Jason Frieling:And so and there are other flavors of taxonomies that, you know, have spun off of that. Another area or category taxonomy of taxonomies, would put Fink's taxonomy of significant learning in there. And that one, when we think of blooms, there's usually a pyramid. Mhmm. And the solo is is kind of a climbing a mountain.
Jason Frieling:Finx is more of a a wheel because, you're never done. You're starting at a foundational level of knowledge, and then, you you move through it, to be able to deal with it, and then, then you start caring, you start seeing the human dimension involved with it, you're learning how to learn in it, and it brings you to a new level, new area where you realize you're still you're back at the core. And so it's a it's a big wheel and it keeps it keeps, going going around and around. And so, and that that one really is a good one for, dealing with soft skills.
Jared:Yeah. Finks was one I'd heard of before, in my master's program. We did a lot of, talks about, social justice and, areas like that of not only learning new material, but developing a sense of, plan of action or, doing more with the knowledge than just applying it to an exam. Like, what are your next steps and what are your so the kind of social justice stuff that would that shows up in Finks there shows up there too. So
Rob:Those just become I think they can become very hard to be able to measure.
Jared:Yeah.
Rob:And I think that's really the the difference. At least starting with Bloom's, it's a little bit easier to look at his categories, see the verbs that Anderson and Crotwell, you know, revised, taking it from the noun side to the verb side. And with those verbs, then you have easy pathways into assessment.
Jared:Right.
Rob:Right? We've talked about that on several occasions. So when you start looking at things with it seems to me, with things, you're, you know, you're looking at caring
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:Which goes into human motivation.
Jared:Right.
Rob:Things that drive you, what you care about, not only probably since it's got the human dimension, it's not only the content. It's also what does my learning have to do in relationship to other people? Where does that all connect? All very important things. Sure.
Rob:But in terms of design, it could probably be a little bit more involved. What do you think?
Jason Frieling:Hard to assess, hard get data from, how do you measure caring type thing? As you said, Rob, it's important and designing and thinking about your courses and why are we doing these things, especially here at Cedarville, that has to be part of what we're doing. But as far as designing objectives that are measurable and to be able to assess them, that's that's where we're seeing the distinction.
Jared:If I recall when I went through those courses, it wasn't necessarily about assessing that element of it just as long as it was included in some way or thought of.
Rob:Okay.
Jared:Like if someone were to take a position on something, that's what you would necessarily assess.
Jason Frieling:With objectives, that danger of it being at the whim of the professor or the instructor, whether you're designing the course, whether you're doing the course yourself, for yourself takes that danger out. You know, how many times as I taught public education English, for for twenty four years, how many times did I, grade on feeling? Well, I I don't wanna put that on air. I don't wanna publicly give that a no, because because there were times that that was the case. I didn't have the objectives.
Jason Frieling:I wasn't thinking about the objectives and and, you know, to my to my shame, I I was grading on the feel that that student, had in the classroom or how much, unfortunately, did they care about the subject or, those kinds of things. And so, those, again, those objectives are maps, are are way markers are all and are also, I would describe them as as guardrails, to keep to keep the assessment, fair.
Rob:Mhmm.
Jared:Yeah. That does help take that element out of it of care. Because I was like you and I taught, language arts in high school. I was horrible at writing objectives. And it wasn't until I got into really my doctorate program and started working here as an idea.
Jared:I was like, Oh wait, those are objectives. Okay. I should be doing this. But at the time it was more of my main way of really assessing students, especially when it came to literature. I don't know if it was necessarily the caring element of it, but it was more of the, okay, here are the themes that we're talking about.
Jared:I need you to show me that you show evidence of that theme if you understand that how this fits into this theme. Like, with Macbeth and ambition, like, need you to show me where it is in ambition. And they they may be learning other things, but I really wanted them to do this. And I didn't really know what that looked like as far as from a measurable perspective of it. I just needed to it's one of those when you see it, you know what it is kind of.
Jared:Mean, can't I'm looking back now, I cringe at that and I apologize if any of my former students are listening. We had fun. I'm not sure the assessment portion of my teaching was was the best because I didn't really have this objective stance. Clear on it. I wasn't clear on
Jason Frieling:it. No.
Jared:I wasn't at all.
Rob:So one of the questions I wanna ask you, Jason, is one that I've heard you know, I think you've probably heard it too. It's like, well, I'm not in education. I don't I'm not in the school of education. Why in the world should I care about these technical terms called objectives? Don't they just use those for accreditation, and we've gotta, you know, show that we're doing what the accreditors want us to do?
Rob:And, you know, what would you say to that?
Jason Frieling:After taking a deep breath, I would again bring it to a metaphor. You know, if if you got into a car and just started driving, you know, without paying attention to, the speed you were going, the lane you were in, the direction you were going, what what could you expect? And, you know, besides, you know, mayhem on the road, car crash, needing needing some medical attention on most likely and paying off some, some tickets, the the results would be pretty pretty obvious. You're not gonna get where you're going or you or and it's a mess. It's the it's the same thing.
Jason Frieling:It's the tool. It's what's going on inside what what you're trying to get done in that educational environment. And it's a common, it ends up being a common, vocabulary that we can all we can all talk about. So whether you and a colleague are teaching the same thing, can you can compare, you can you can spur each other on, you can, be speaking the same language about, what it is you're doing in the classroom and what your aim and what your purpose is for teaching whatever it is you're teaching. It becomes something that binds you together in a band of brothers or sisters or brother and sisters in the educational process.
Jason Frieling:I just remember having a mentor, and it popped up in the most interesting place, which was supposed to be
Rob:a Christian education course, but what it ended up being it was about education. Doctor Terry Powell was probably one of the most life changing courses that I had in seminary. And it was supposed to be a Christian ed course, but what it ended up being was actually what he called the planning cycle, and he told us exactly what we were going to do. And I remember him saying something in that class as he was teaching us. Essentially, what is the planning cycle or what what we go and what we use and what we do here at CTL?
Rob:Thinking at the end, you know, thinking with the end in mind. You start at the end and you work backwards from there. So the planning cycle is very similar. But in it, he would say, if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time. And the more vague your goal, the more likely you are to hit it.
Rob:Yep. But the reality is most of the time, hopefully, Lord willing, as educators, we don't wanna be vague. We wanna be clear. We want to all be rowing in the same direction and having that communication. And not like what you said, Jason.
Rob:You said it's a shared vocabulary. It's a way that we can spur each other on, have conversations, especially for teaching the same course.
Jared:My big thing with objectives is, and I think you two would agree with this, it's not necessarily, we're not I'm not tied as an instructional designer to Bloom's. I mean, I don't really I mean, if you wanna go through and you're not limited to the verbs in Bloom's. I feel like that's where a lot of educators get hung up on it. It's like, well, I don't really have anything that fits this because my class is this way and this assessment I like to do doesn't really fit any of these Bloom's objectives or Bloom's objective verbs. And to me, it's like, I don't really care what verb you use as long as it's measurable.
Jason Frieling:Right.
Jared:As long as you can translate it from your objective that you write, the content that you are presenting to the students to help them meet that objective, and then the assessment you use to see if they've mastered that objective. It doesn't matter what verb you use as long as it's measurable and can be translated from, you know, objective to content to assessment. You can say whatever you want to as long as it's you just don't say things like students will be able to think, students will be able to understand. People get hung up on it as much.
Rob:One way to get to that is maybe through SMART goals. You know, if you think of something as being specific, measurable, achievable, relatable, and time bound, the time bound should be within the course, but you can you can move those around. You can scaffold your objectives. You can have one build on another. You can build them all in parallel together.
Rob:It just depends on what it is you need to do or what your end outcome is and the best way of getting to that end outcome for your students and their particular level that they're at, it seems to me.
Jason Frieling:Which is which is why we have program objectives Mhmm. Course objectives and then module objectives and even sometimes, objectives that are more granular than that. Right.
Rob:Well, this has been excellent.
Jared:Oh, yeah.
Rob:Thank you for being willing to come in and talk to us, Jason, and your work that you've done here for CTL. Let me just thank you publicly. And and our conversations that we've had when you added what you'd been studying and and to the conversation, it was just really helped me reflect back on, yeah, this is why we do these things and having a good handle on it and then also hearing questions that we've had, like, why balloons?
Jared:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Rob:I feel like you've helped us out there with that today. So thank you
Jared:for the dark horse of the CTL. The dark horse. I think he is kinda The dark horse. Like the dark knight in Batman. Right?
Jared:Batman. Exactly.
Rob:So There it is.
Jason Frieling:I I do want to express, you know, appreciation for all I've learned from you you gentlemen, and, the podcasts that I've listened to and, all the wisdom and knowledge that has been bestowed upon me through our through our sometimes facetious bantering.
Jared:Well, thank you, Jason. We appreciate you coming on. Thanks. Pleasure.
Ryan:Thanks for listening to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. If have any questions or comments about our conversation on Bloom's taxonomy, feel free to reach out to us at ctlpodcast@cedarville.edu. You can also connect with us on LinkedIn. And don't forget to check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog. Thanks for listening.