Transcript Bloom`s Taxonomy - WikiTutor

Bloom’s Taxonomy
Level 3
Application
Deborah Hardwick
Manager, Online Tutoring
Houston Community College
713-718-5340
[email protected]
Executive Board Member, ATP
There is only one speaker’s note in this presentation. The main slide (#21) tells you about it.
Level 3 - Application
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Although many students come to tutoring
with the idea that working at the first two
levels (knowledge and understanding) is
enough, the third level (application) is where
real learning begins.
What is Application?
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Use of a concept in a new situation or
unprompted use of an abstraction.
Application of what was learned in the
classroom in novel situations.
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http://www.nwlink.com/~Donclark/hrd/bloom.html
What Does That Mean?
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It is not enough to simply “know” something.
If the learner cannot transfer the knowledge
to a new situation, it has not really been
learned.
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For example, I can “know” all the parts of a
carburetor to label them on a diagram, but if I
cannot find them in the car, I don’t really
know what a carburetor is.
If I can’t figure out that other machines
besides cars have carburetors, I also don’t
understand the concept.

If I can make the association between a
carburetor and the lungs in the human body,
I’m getting closer to really understanding
what a carburetor is.
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OK, enough of carburetors ...
The Coolest Example I Know
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Several years ago, I met a woman who
taught welding at Albuquerque TVI. She got
a small grant to take her welding students
and their families to the Albuquerque zoo for
a day. The families enjoyed the animals and
had a picnic.
Where do welding and Bloom come in?
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Students had to draw, identify, and assess at
least ten different types of welds at the zoo.
They had to predict which welds were at the
point of failure and suggest alternate types of
welds for different applications. Back in class,
they had to reproduce one of the welds that
they had not worked with earlier.
Key Words
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Assignments that encourage application
often include these key words:
Apply, change, compute, construct,
demonstrate, discover, manipulate, modify,
operate, predict, prepare, produce, relate,
show, solve, use, dramatize, employ,
illustrate, interpret, and practice.
How Do These Apply to Tutoring?

In a short tutoring session, as opposed to a
semester of teaching, the use of Level 3
strategies can reinforce what has been
taught in the classroom as well as start the
student on the path to true understanding.
Every subject and every level of instruction can
benefit from application exercises.
What Happens in the Tutoring Center?
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Johnny is taking Anatomy and Physiology.
He is supposed to “learn” the bones in the
human leg. He wants a simple mnemonic
device to memorize the names of the bones.
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As a tutor, you could teach him “Peter fries
funky tacos” (Patella, fibula, femur, tibia).
You could ask him to point to the bones on a
diagram, draw a diagram, explain the
difference between the fibula and the tibia, or
find the bones in his own leg.
Or ...

You could ask him to demonstrate the way
the patella works, predict the result of a
break in each bone, or explain the function
of each bone. Ask him to find ten people who
have had broken legs, discover which bone
had been broken, and analyze the
differences in how long each break took to
heal.
What about in Math?
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Susie is having trouble understanding the
concept of negative numbers.

As a tutor, you could give her a definition,
ask her to memorize and recite that
definition, paraphrase the definition, or have
her identify the negative numbers in a series.
Or ...
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You could help her brainstorm situations in
which negative numbers might be used.
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An overdrawn checking account
A winter weather report from up north
Basements and sub-basements
Susie could be asked to keep a journal of all
the times in a week that she uses negative
numbers.
In Reading Classes,
George cannot follow the path of ideas. The
beginning and end of the story often seem
disconnected to him. As a result, he gets
frustrated and is failing his class.
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A tutor who is knowledgeable about Bloom
can make great use of the predictive
application.
From a single introductory paragraph, ask
George to imagine several possible
outcomes. Have him write them down on
flashcards or separate pages.
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Add the next paragraph. Ask him to
eliminate all possible outcomes that the
second paragraph precludes.
Continue through the third paragraph, again
eliminating unlikely outcomes.
Finally, from those he has left, ask George to
predict which is the most likely. After he has
selected one, ask George to read the
conclusion.
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If he was right, discuss what clues gave him
the information.
If he was wrong, help him discover where
he went off course.
Using Short Stories in Tutoring
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Jeffrey Archer is my favorite short story author. All of
his short stories have surprise endings. (See note for
titles.)
Helping students discover exactly where in a story
the “twist” is foreshadowed is a great way to help
advanced students look at literature more
analytically. It also helps them add interest to their
own writing by incorporating elements of surprise or
misdirection.
It works in English, too.
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English tutoring is, perhaps, the most fertile
area for Level 3 strategies. Manipulating a
student’s work is a great way to teach new
skills that build on the basics.
Years ago, I taught from a book called
Twenty-Six Steps. Unfortunately, I cannot
recall the author or publisher.
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It was a low-level ESL text that gave students a
paragraph. Perhaps it was all in the present tense.
First, they had to modify it to change all the verbs to
the past tense. Then, they had to change feminine
pronouns to masculine ones. Next, they changed
singulars to plurals, perhaps. That series of
manipulations clearly showed how making just one
change required many other modifications.
The same process of modification
works with vocabulary enhancement
Ask Maria to write a simple sentence with a
common subject and a basic verb.
–
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Then ask her to add an adjective.
–
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The girl walked.
The pretty girl walked.
Next, ask her to add an adverb.
–
The pretty girl walked sexily.
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Ask her to add a prepositional phrase.
–
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Then, she can change the common noun to
a proper one.
–
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The pretty girl walked sexily into the prom.
Maria walked sexily into the prom.
Finally, she can change the verb to a more
expressive one.
–
Maria sashayed into the prom.
Moving from the Classroom to the Real
World – Up the Bloom’s Ladder
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It is never enough for students to learn
isolated facts. Facts without context may
make someone a great trivia player, but
there are few opportunities for Trivial Pursuit
players to go professional!
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Helping students incorporate what they
learn in any and every class and apply it to
their own lives, jobs, families, hobbies, and
goals should be one of the foremost goals of
any tutor. Only by seeing the connection
between isolated facts and the real world can
students go on to become successful in
whatever they choose to do.
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Bloom’s Taxonomy is not the end-all and beall of learning or tutoring, but it provides a
stable framework upon which to build.