Higher Order of Thinking

In order to master content one must reflect upon it. In this blog I will be talking about my fieldwork experience and go into depth on how it helped me master certain aspects. Before beginning my experience for fieldwork I was overwhelmed and didn't know where to begin my lessons. I've heard of the three different lessons, but I was unsure on how to implement them. Watching group one go made me realize the distinct difference between each lesson. During these lessons I was talking mental notes on what will benefit our group. Even at the end of group ones teaching we all had a moment to reflect upon how they did teaching. This gave all of us insight on how we should set up our lessons and implement them. A few blogs down, I gave my feedback on how group one did to mater their content. We were asked to fill out a reflection template based on how each group implemented their lessons. At first I thought this was going to be busy work and had nothing to do with the content, but it was the complete opposite. During this time, I was learning on how to think critically and even give "sound" feedback to each group. This was a learning experience for me and I enjoyed writing these reflections. In each reflection I put down aspects that I liked and how I would maybe implement some things different. The way I constructed it helped me apply my knowledge and construct a higher order of thinking. I was looking back to my recent reflections and observed how I was still unsure of the content and was confused on what to write. Skimming through the later reflections, you can see more in depth detail and a lot more emphasis on how to implement a proper lesson. Overall I think the reflections that were required helped me understand the difference between the lessons and how to implement them within a classroom. When reading about Bloom's Taxonomy I was a little skeptical on how this all connects with teaching, but it connects in a way through the students. Students are "blank slates" as they call it, but they do have some sort of prior knowledge on the different subjects. When learning new content they start at the very bottom of the pyramid and eventually build their way up to the higher order of thinking spectrum. We do this by building a foundation through the direct instruction. This is where it is teacher centered and the students are learning either by listening or writing. Listening would be on the bottom of the pyramid along with accessing prior knowledge. I like to think of this process like building stairs, in order to get to the next step you have to follow it in sequential order. The next lesson that is given would be the inquiry process. Students are applying the knowledge they just learned in the previous instruction. They are starting to build a higher order of thinking by making their own discoveries. Finally is the cooperative lesson. Cooperative is important to build students social skills and also evaluate their fellow peers on how they worked together and their overall summary on the content they learned from the inquiry lesson. Evaluation and reflection would hit the highest point on Bloom's Taxonomy. Relating this theory to the three different lessons really showed me the crucial connections between theories and designing lessons.
Another important attribute that I would like to talk about is implementing the 5 E's during the inquiry process. When designing the inquiry lesson, I was unaware that there were 5 E's that teachers must hit in order to develop this higher order of thinking. I started to realize this aspect when the first group taught their inquiry lesson. While they were teaching I was looking down at the reflection paper and comparing and contrasting on how they implemented these concepts. According to CScope, "Teachers should encourage students to explain observations and findings in their own words (5E Lesson Design: Applicationto CSCOPE Social Studies, page 28). The inquiry process should be a dual interaction between teachers and students. Students should have more control during this process, but the teachers are there to provide help to any students that are struggling. The 5 E's help the students discover their own findings either with a group or individually. Overall I think my fieldwork experience was successful and helped me develop more knowledge on not only how to teach well, but also how to write a well developed lesson plan. Before fieldwork I was not really sure on how to even start a lesson plan or even know how to implement it. I'm feeling very confident in what I am doing now. Below is a rubric that is based on my fieldwork experience. Feel free to look at the marks and I hope you enjoyed this blog. Until next time bloggers :)

Assessment & Instruction Reflection Rubric 

Lesson Plans Are Vital

Wow I can't believe we are halfway through the semester. We are about to finish up fieldwork which means it's time to stop and reflect on all of things we did. This fieldwork experience taught me a lot about lesson planning and collaboration. Collaboration was the key during this fieldwork experience.Without this key attribute groups would not be able to get any work done. This was my first time ever teaching a full classroom and I was little nervous throughout this process. Once I got up in front of the classroom it just felt natural. One thing I gained through this experience was confidence. Before this class I struggled with knowing what to say to students and being timid in the classroom.  After I taught it was a big weight off my chest, but also gave me the boost that I needed as well. Not only did I gain the confidence to teach, but I noticed my reflections towards my fellow peers increased over time too. Looking back to the first reflection and my last reflection I can see some progress in my writing and academic language.The one aspect I want to reflect on are the lesson plans. Dr. Smirnova wanted us to take our lessons plans and make a copy of the formatted one she corrected. With this new copy we had to design our own lesson based off of on our beliefs. I liked this assignment because it gave me time to really reflect on how I would want to change certain aspects. It also gave us an opportunity to look through a deeper lens undergoing the process of evaluation. The first step in this process was to make a copy of the original lesson plan and correct the changes I thought were necessary. For the direct lesson plan there was not much for me too change because I made all the changes that I thought were necessary the second time around. I tweaked a few things here and there, but nothing to drastic. When designing this lesson, I tried to think of how to incorporate technology. This was a hard process to think of something with the use of technology. One thing we used was the Smart Board for the guided practice. I really liked how we incorporated the Smart Board for this assignment and the students seemed to be engaged with the lesson. While correcting the second lesson plan I noticed a few important details that needed to be changed, but it was nothing too serious. The wording was a little jumbled and I just added in a few words to make is sound smoother. One aspect we forgot was to hyperlink the Web Quest within the lesson. This will make it easier for whoever is reading the lesson to follow along. The one aspect that I was struggling with was the objectives. I wanted to make sure the objectives were observable and measurable for us. Eventually I figured out an objective to write that correlates with our lesson plan. Our inquiry lesson was not as detailed as our direct was because the direct is more teacher centered then the inquiry. Overall this lesson plan was written very well with just some minor adjustments. The cooperative lesson plan was the last one that we did as a group. With this lesson plan there were also minor adjustments to this as well. Like the inquiry lesson, I fixed little details here and there. Most of the adjustments was on the wording and phrases. I would say all of our lesson plans were created to the best of our capabilities. I'm glad that I had a great group to work with and I look forward to being in the classroom now. Below this blog are my lesson plans that I revised based off of my perspective. I hope you enjoy reading our engaging lesson plans. Until next time bloggers :)

Direct Lesson Plan
Inquiry Lesson Plan
Cooperative Lesson Plan

The British Are Coming

British Are Here

This is our third time coming to Bishop Dunn, but this time we are learning about how the colonists became free. Group three consisted of: Elizabeth, Melissa, Emily, Keilani, and Kim. This group was responsible for teaching the second graders about the important facts that follow along with the colonists. Before starting the lesson, Melissa asked questions that required the students to tap into their prior knowledge. This gave a good evaluation to see what the students knew and what the students didn't know. It also gave an opportunity for the students to see what they will be learning within this lesson. After the review the group decided to use an interactive song that sang the 13 colonies for the students. I noticed with this group they love to sing songs and it is easier for them to remember the material that way. The song that this group implemented within the lesson was an excellent idea. Every student was actively paying attention and singing the lyrics by the end. It is important to keep in mind that everyone has different learning styles. Having them singing this song allowed them to have a different approach to teaching. The transition from the introduction to the development was smooth and precise. Each student was supplied with a worksheet which had fill in the blanks and a timeline on the side. The timeline was a good idea, but they did not give the students enough space to write down the important event. Also providing them a visual either on the White Board or Smart Board would have helped them out significantly. Group 3 did use a Poster board for their timeline, but wasted too much time filling it out. Using this timeline was a great idea for the students to follow along in sequential order. It was noticeable that each teacher candidate in this group was knowledgeable of the content they had to teach. When teachers are knowledgeable of the content it allows students to open up to learning as well by asking questions. I noticed that this group was asked the most questions and the answers were precise and quick from each teacher candidate. Another aspect that I really enjoyed through this lesson was the storytelling. Keilani did an engaging storytelling with the students. As a student storytelling is an active listening portion, but I could tell all the students were engaged within this story and the enthusiasm that burst through Keilani's body language was noticed by not only the other teacher candidates, but by the students. The last aspect that I also really enjoyed through the development was the different signals. Having the students follow by different signals definitely kept them on their toes and helped them pay attention a little more. The last attribute that Group 3 used was a booklet for the guided practice. During this section, the students were given a booklet of questions that they had to answer based off of what they just learned through the direct lesson. It helped that the teacher candidates put the questions on the board because the students could follow along easier and helped them spell an complex vocabulary words. With the independent practice Group 3 asked the students to answer a few multiple choice questions based on what they learned and discovered. At this time everything seemed a little rushed, but they all still managed to answer their questions to their fullest capabilities.

Gaining Independence Through Inquiry and Cooperative 

A week after Group 3 presented two other portions of their lesson plan. It was now time for them to present their inquiry and cooperative lesson. As usual the group started off with review questions based off of the Direct lesson. This was a quick review for the students to get their "minds going" before their inquiry lesson. The problem for this lesson was shown through a Voki video and they used Steve from the first group which was good for the students to make previous connections. After the Voki was done the students were taught the process of the inquiry method. I think it is challenging for the students to learn and master the inquiry method because it is such a complex idea for them to understand, but this group did an excellent job explaining the steps. After discussing the methods, the group modeled how they were going to do the artifact bags. Melissa and Emily did a great job modeling how the students will be working together in groups. Modeling is an important process for the students to see because it helps them realize the roles that they have within their group. When Melissa and Emily were done modeling their artifact bags it was the students turn to complete this task. Watching the students look through the artifact bags made me realize that hands on activities really help the students learn. Each group was going through the inquiry method with the help of their classmates. The only suggestion I have for this section is to make sure that the teachers have little impact on helping the students. If the students are not doing the steps right let them think about the steps by themselves and have them make the discoveries on their own. Group 3 managed to hit all of the 5 E's within this lesson which then helped the student become experts on the material. The independent practice that they assigned the students was to write a letter to the first graders. This was an excellent idea, but the students did not have enough time to write their entire letter. My suggestion would be to assign this writing for homework or during any free time they might have throughout the day. This will help you save time and will everyone moving onto the cooperative lesson. During the cooperative lesson, the students were a little rowdy because they were excited for the next activity. The teacher candidates explained the directions for this section and had the students start working on the poster. Each group was assigned a few letters from the word "Independence." They were asked to write an acrostic poem for this specific word. Looking through the 5 PIGS this group did hit many of the aspects. One aspect that I observed was no clear roles during this section. In the inquiry section their were distinct roles, but not during this lesson. There was no individual accountability throughout this lesson, but the good thing is all the students seemed to work on the poster. Each group was asked to brainstorm ideas and eventually a teacher candidate wrote down all the words from each group on a big poster board. At the end of completing this poster board, Melissa read each letter going down. The only suggestion I have for that is to have each group read their own words that they made. Overall I think all three lessons went really well and I can't wait to see your group grow from this experience. I look forward to the last group presenting their topic. Until next time bloggers :)

Wonderful Web Quests

For my inquiry section, we decided to create a Web Quest. This was an excellent idea in the beginning, but then I realized how much work it was to complete the task. I had six groups in total to complete. Each group was an explorer and they had to find out which explorer they were through the inquiry process. Designing a Web Quest for second graders was little challenging. The few aspects that I needed to take into consideration were reading, writing, and presenting the material. Before I started my Web Quest, I laid out exactly what I needed to do. I started to Google search some articles that could be useful to this assignment and marked down the important information. Then I proceeded to figure out what explorers that each group was going to use. The explorers we decided to use were: Christopher Columbus, Pilgrims, Henry Hudson, and John Smith. Due to time, I decided to repeat two of the same explorers for certain groups. In order to complete this Web Quest I used Google Sites to create each page. The beginning section of the Web Quest is the problem that they have to complete. This coincides with the Voki that was introduced to the class previously. This section was by far the easiest to create because it did need a lot of information. Moving on to the next few pages was rough. I spent all day on these sections because there was so much information involved. The way I went around lengthy articles was to include some pieces of information in a Goggle Document. This way the students were not worried about reading long articles. They can pick and choose what to write down on their organizer we supplied them with. The way I designed this Web Quest correlates with the graphic organizers that were given to the students. There was a fill in the blank section for them to write their hypothesis and their conclusion. I also decided to add in visuals on the Web Quest because this will help them follow directions on what to do. An example of this is if you click on the first crew it shows you a stop sign at the very top. After reading the first article students need to stop and write their hypothesis based on the first article. Once the students are done with writing their hypothesis they can begin to look through the articles and find out what explorer they have. Each article is personalized through Google Docs and this took up the majority of my time because I needed to find articles that were relevant to the explorers. After finding articles I made sure to hyperlink the Google Docs inside the Web Quest. The one factor that I had consider during this assignment is making sure the students or teacher candidates had access to edit it when presenting the information to the groups. One way I did this was just sending my fellow teacher candidates the link that is setup right to the Web Quest. There were so many important factors that I had to take into consideration. Once the Web Quest was designed I wanted to make sure everyone also had access to the Google Documents that I had created. I did this by signing out of the Mount account and opening up the Google Docs. At this stage everything seemed to be working fine. Some teacher candidates used their iPads to look at the Web Quest and I wanted to make sure everything would show up for them so that the students won't miss out on any information. It is so important to think of all the things that could go wrong throughout this experience because I spent so much time on this. Overall the students seemed to enjoy this Web Quest because we incorporated technology. Below is the link to the Web Quest that I created for the students. Until next time bloggers :)

Welcome to The Museum of Natural History

Test The Knowledge

As a group we created a Pre/Post Tests for the students in second grade. We created this test by using Google Forms. I was never aware that tests can be created within Google. This is such an important Web 2.0 tool because everyone can collaborate to the assessment. When creating these assessments each group was in charge of their own subject. My group was in charge of making questions based on the Early Explorers. For the Pre-Test, we looked back at the previous year and tried to make a correlation between what they learned in first grade. This accessed their prior knowledge on the subject. We went this way because we wanted to see if there was any stipulations that the students missed last year. Doing it the way we designed also helps the students understand the concept on Bloom's Taxonomy. My group outlined this pre-test to have a higher order of thinking and allow students to use their recalling skills through the cognitive lens. As you can see through the link some of the questions are short answer and the rest are multiple choice. Not only did this assess the students prior knowledge, but it also gives them an opportunity to see what exactly they will learning in each section. Personally, I thought that the short answer questions were harder to think of because I didn't want to make the questions too difficult for the students. The pre-test in general was hard to construct because we were all unsure of their prior knowledge based on the subject. Created the Post-Test was a completely different change. We decided to keep a few of our questions and change two of the questions. This section is a little different from the first test that was given to the students. It was a general overview on how the students learned. These questions are to see if the students understood the material and stored it into their long-term memory. This section was a little easier to construct because we used some of the questions that we asked when teaching them our direct lesson plan. These questions were more short answer questions because we wanted to see them reach a higher order of thinking during this section according to Bloom's Taxonomy. Applying their knowledge based off what they learned. This is why we added questions like: "Why, How, What, etc." To see how the students respond to the given questions. This allows the students to thinker deeper and evaluate themselves on the thinking process. Designing these types of questions really helped us pinpoint what we would be teaching the students. This falls more into place with the pre-test. Whatever questions we used during that specific section; it helped us with what exactly we were going to teach. It also helped us with the post test as well. The questions that we added during the post-test were based off the content we used for our direct, inquiry, and cooperative lesson. I really liked this assignment of creating these two tests. It helped me become more diverse with Goggle applications and I thoroughly enjoyed this experience. Until next time bloggers :)

Drastic Change In Schools

Recently Dr. Smirnova gave us an article to read about Finland's school system. Before reading this article I had an open mind on how other countries and places taught their students in a classroom setting. While reading this article, "How Finland Broke Every Rule" it was interesting to see how exactly the students learn. The first couple of paragraphs discusses what a fourth grade classroom in rural Finland looks like. William Doyle stated, "Instead of control, competition, stress, standardized testing, screen-based schools and loosened teacher qualifications, try warmth, collaboration, and highly professionalized, teacher-led encouragement and assessment." This aspect is completely different compared to the American education reformers. We require our teachers to be qualified when choosing them for the job, but not as highly qualified in Finland. Another attribute that is different is the standardized testing. Standardized testing is a big deal for New York. Students are required to either take regents and many other testing. America thinks that tests really measure the students capability of their cognitive skills, but in actuality it doesn't. Taking tests require students to memorize the material, but this doesn't help their higher order thinking skills. In Finland students are not immersed in technology as much as other places. They do have the high tech devices, but they are never really seen in the school system. There is usually just a smart board and a teacher's desktop. Comparing that scenery to our college; there are certain rooms that only have those two aspects. This can be seen in our lecture rooms with the desks facing towards the smart board. The one aspect that is different in Finland is the teacher only uses their smart board when he/she is delivering simulations of personalized teaching. This is unique characteristic that I have NEVER seen before in a school system. I'm not positive on what exactly it means, but the thing I take out of it is someone virtually teaching the students through technology. This is one aspect that I definitely am going to look into! If there is a simple way of creating the simulations, I would conduct it in my own classroom. 
The classroom management is also done a little different in Finland. I like the fact that classroom is setup for student to slouch, wiggle and giggle for the students. Just that little movement allows the students to be kinesthetic learners. This is definitely one attribute that should be added to the classroom in America. Teachers in America refrain students to move around and "do silly things" because they think it will distract the other students from learning. I like having this attribute in the classroom because students need a moment to be silly and get all of their energy out in some way. The other major difference is the atmosphere. In Finland the students are encouraged to constantly experiment with new approaches to improve learning. The students are learning by doing which hits many points on the Bloom's Taxonomy pyramid. There are so many attributes in Finland that make me wonder about the American school system. Finland seems to have terrific success rates and the students seem to be more interested in learning new things. Right on the side of this blog, I added a video which includes more information on the Finland school system. The one thing that surprised me was the dropout rate compared to the American dropout rate. They mentioned that students DO NOT dropout in Finland and if they do then it is only 5% compared to half the students in America. This video really goes into depth about the school system and what you see inside their different schools. I recommend watching this video to anyone that is interested in learning about this AMAZING school system. Until next time bloggers :) 

Native Americans Rock!

Talking About The Native Americans

Today was our first day at Bishop Dunn watching Group 1 take the plunge and teach for the first time. I felt nervous for them and commend them for going first. There topic was on Native Americans. The students seemed to know a lot of prior knowledge on Native Americans which helped them with this lesson. Bryanna started with the opening of the lesson and clearly stated all the goals that the students will be able to accomplish in that time period. I think it was important to include this aspect to help the students pinpoint what they will be taking out of this lesson. In the development my fellow teacher candidates ran into a few problems. Before the problems started they gave a brief introduction on what the word shelter means to the students. Heather asked the students their definition on shelter and based the definition off of the pictures that she showed them. I really like how Heather compared and contrasted certain shelters so that the students could get a clear view on what they are looking at. The one suggestion I have for group one is to try not to make it sound so rehearsed. Everyone knew the content which is really important, but if it sounds too rehearsed the students will be able to pick up on it.  After a few slides were up, unfortunately the power went out and Group 1 was no longer able to use the Smart Board for their presentation. This was an unfortunate power outage, but Group 1 worked with the inconvenience and finished their Direct lesson strong. I know being the first group it was hard to think about backups, but when teaching we have to keep in mind that technology can be our enemy sometimes. The only suggestion with that is to bring in visuals for the students just in case something like this happens. An example of this would be using a poster board to post all the key terms you want the students to know. Something as simple as that will go a long way for the students. The one thing Group 1 did well with is recuperating and getting back the lesson. Each student was given a colored card to hold up if the students agreed or disagreed. This was mostly used with the check point questions which hits the understanding section with Bloom's Taxonomy. Students were asked to hold the green side up if they agreed and the red side up they disagreed with any statement. This helps the students stay on task and helps all students participate. Now that I talked about the introduction and development, it is now time to discuss the guided practice. Group 1 supplied the students with 1 guided practices that they all completed. The one they used was a graphic organizer describing the difference between each tribe. Graphic organizers are a good way to help the students organize their thoughts and ideas. This assignment was designed to help the students understand the difference between the tribes and their shelters. I thought it was an excellent idea to draw a graph on the board so the students could follow along. Melissa did a good job working with the students to complete the activity. After the students were done filling in the information, they were asked to draw a picture of the different shelters. I noticed with this grade in particular, students seem to love drawing pictures. Drawing pictures is very useful for students because it still hits a section in Bloom's Taxonomy. This is not considered the highest order of thinking, but it is still apart of the understanding section. I really liked how you had the students draw on their paper and then come to the board to draw on the board. Just be careful with having the students come to the board because every student wants a chance to draw on the board as well. Overall the direct lesson went really well for your group. I will mention every lesson in this one blog.
Helping Steve
Artifact bags are a great idea for the students to follow the inquiry process. Before introducing the artifact bags the students listened to a Voki giving them a problem to solve. Voki is an excellent Web 2.0 tool to use for the students because it helps them engage within the lesson. The only thing with the Voki is to make sure to show the students at the right time. It was a little to early in the lesson to introduce the Voki because when the students were about to complete the artifact bags they forgot what the problem was for them to solve.  I also know how hard it is to teach the steps of inquiry, but if you modeled the steps for them I think they would grasp the concept of what is required of them. It was so much fun to watch the students interact during this artifact bag lesson. Each student seemed very engaged and excited to find out their tribe. During this inquiry process, students are hitting the applying section of the Bloom's Taxonomy. Each step in this pyramid can go by how you implement the lesson being taught. The students didn't really get a chance to explain their findings. Due to time Payge, explained the answers to the artifact bags. I understand time was permitting, but giving the students time to present their findings hits a higher order of thinking. This allows the students to evaluate how he/she worked within their groups. The only suggestion for this section is to have a more structured time frame that the students had to work within. Otherwise for the first group to go you did an excellent job with your inquiry lesson. Which then brings me to the final lesson which is Cooperative. 
Building Tepee's
Making tepee's was an excellent way to end the lesson. This worked with the kinesthetic learners because they had to do hands on work. The one aspect I really liked through this lesson was how the teacher candidates worked one on one with each table. Everyone kept the students on task and helped if they asked for it. One thing I would've liked to see is each group building each shelter. I know it was hard and expensive to buy all the materials, but when you are student teaching that would be an excellent idea to have the students create the shelters. Group 1 seemed to use some of the 5 PIG's within this lesson. They hit  most of them except the face-to-face interaction and positive interdependence. During this lesson, it is important to have the students chose roles and have responsibility for that desired role. I didn't really get a chance to see if each student had a certain role to follow when they were building their tepee's. The last aspect that I will mention is face-to-face interaction. Time was running out at this point and it was hard to have the students present their tepee's. Time management was extremely hard with teaching both inquiry and cooperative. I think Group 1 worked well with the time management in some attributes. Overall Group 1 set the bar pretty high for the other groups because they did extremely well with all their lessons. Until next time bloggers :)

Snow Day Online

I've missed blogging for a little while, but now I'm back. I wanted to take a moment and begin explaining what happened a few weeks ago! Well here I go, so a few weeks ago we had a little snow storm which caused Bishop Dunn to close. Dr. Smirnova, decided the safest way to still have class was through Adobe Connect. I've used Adobe Connect before, but it was exciting to use it all over again. I walked to the computer lab that we were originally supposed to be in and began logging on as I usually do. Dr. Smirnova began with her introduction and went right into the lesson. With Adobe Connect you can do a lot of neat aspects. She decided to project a PowerPoint in the background so we could all see it. While we were all viewing the PowerPoint she did a voiceover on what she wanted us to know. Her PowerPoint was about designing lessons for edTPA. The cover page really caught my attention because edTPA is such an important aspect to learn about for student teaching. There are five different models of teaching just like the blog below. The five types are behavioral, information processing, social interactive, experiential, and independent study. These five strategies do sound very familiar to me. Some of them were actually used below this specific blog. Moving along, the next couple of slides were discussing the "meat and cheese" of writing a lesson plan. This would include: goals and objectives. These two terms I am very familiar with, but it never hurts to brush up on aspects. The examples she used would were:

Objective Example: Given a task to work in a group of 4 and the resources on the American Revolution, the student will create a poster, following the criterial of the rubric and scoring at 3/4.

Dr. Smirnova supplied us with an outline when designing your own objective which is also very useful. The formula she gave us was: Given (a task or materials) the student will verb (from Bloom's Taxonomy) with (an expected level of performance). You have been hearing me talk about Bloom's Taxonomy so much but what really is Bloom's Taxonomy? In 1956, Benjamin Bloom collaborated with a few other colleges and designed a framework with educational goals. They broke it up into small little sections, what you might know as a pyramid. The six sections of this pyramid include: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Each section has a purpose to accomplish a higher order thinking. Remember is always at the bottom of the pyramid and creating is always at the top. As you can see by the pyramid to the right. There are multiple versions of this Bloom's Taxonomy pyramid, but they all correlate back to the original one. Before getting into the detail about they other pyramids let's first break down each part. 

Remembering/Knowledge

This process involved the recalling of specific material. It can be a recall in pattern, structure, or setting. I like to relate this section to the direct lesson. Throughout a direct lesson the students are recalling the information that is given to them. This is hitting the first section in Bloom's Taxonomy. It is pretty amazing to see some sort of correlation between the two.

Understanding/Comprehension

It is just the next step in the process. This refers to the type of understanding or apprehension so that the individual can make connections with the material. A good connection with this would be having the students answer check point questions based on the direct lesson. The students are understanding the material and applying their cognitive skills to answer the question. Which brings us right to applying. 

Applying/Application

This process uses the abstraction of particular and concrete situations. I know this definition doesn't really explain the attributes. Basically what the definition means is to have the individuals taking the material and using it in and out of the classroom setting. The students/individuals apply their knowledge into the "real world." 

Analyzing/Analysis

It is the breakdown the material into component parts so that the structure may be understood. The outcomes in this sections have a higher intellectual level than comprehension and application. Through this step individuals are understanding the relationship between the content and structural form of the material. 

Evaluating/Synthesis

The second to last step would be the evaluating section which is confusing because in the original Bloom's taxonomy model this would be the last, but they focus on the same attribute in this part of the pyramid. This is where individuals are able to put the pieces back together to make it into a whole. It is either done by research or unique communication. You can say during this step the inquiry process would be a good way to hit the higher order thinking. 

Creating/Evaluating

Last but not least creating! This is the ability to judge then value of material. The judgement are based off criteria that is set for the individuals. Through the teaching model the cooperative lesson plan hits this top section. This is where the students are creating their own presentation, but also giving a peer evaluation. 

Look at the Bloom's Taxonomy model, there are many attributes that carry right into teaching. Dr. Smirnova mentioned many of these attributes throughout her Adobe Connect conversation. I look forward to having more of these online meetings and learning more about Bloom's Taxonomy along the way. Until next time bloggers :)