Rubrics for the new Bloom’s Taxonomy

On Saturday night, February 28, 2009, several of us started talking about the visual needed to show the connection between the new Bloom’s Taxonomy and the interactive web tools now available. (See @Fisher1000’s blog link and the wiki, Visual Blooms.

I suggested turning the initial triangle upside down and making it a pyramid, as creating should be the biggest part, and not the smallest, and it needed to be 3-d, with more depth than just a triangle. In fact, I quoted that @BeckyFisher73 was questioning whether the lower levels of Bloom’s should even be part of this visual, if the interactive web (commonly called 2.0) is all about connecting, collaborating and creating, and the next iteration (sometimes called Web 3.0) is all about producing. Where do those lower levels fit into the web that requires people to interact? “Facts” that are constructed socially must be analyzed, synthesized, and evaluated as they are being constructed. @eduguy101 asked, “Are you saying that the digital blooms needs a flexible structure allowing for varying connections?” (His suggestions for a visual: http://www.doyletics.com/arj/orion.gif (only animated!) @cristama’s suggestion for a visual: www.speadmd.net/ Images/molecule.gif

I asked if creativity equaled create, and @woscholar asked, “would you word it to show Create = a new functional/useful item, idea, etc?” We then began wondering what a rubric for that would look like and all of us actually are entertaining the idea of including rubrics for each level. @woscholar asked what that rubric would look like for the Bloom’s level of “Create” and I haven’t been able to get that question out of my mind.

IF we’re looking at creating a rubric for each level of Bloom’s, we are acknowledging that people move within the each level with varying amounts of expertise. Thus, in the “create” level, we could see the process of create that would equate to a 1 (however we define that) in possibly a young or inexperienced person, and the level of 4 (however we define that) in an expert in a certain area. For example, a kindergartener who is creating a clay pot in an art class and copies the shape the teacher has shown is creating at a low level, while the master potter may/should be creating at the highest level, but perhaps not routinely. Where does teaching others to create at the level of 4, even if perhaps you personally cannot, fit?

So, when I was thinking of these ”Levels of Expertise” in each step of Bloom’s taxonomy, I couldn’t help but think of David Berliner’s Levels of Teacher Expertise, and wonder how those fit into this mindset I was developing. As I ran some of my ideas and questions past @BeckyFisher73 F2F, she reminded me of Steven Levy’s question to find the essential piece of ANYTHING. Thus, we asked each other:

What’s the GENIUS of “create?”
What does it mean to create?
What processes are crucial to creating?
What defines it?
What makes CREATE unique and separate from making or building or constructing?

As Becky and I challenged each other, we came up with two specific frameworks to consider when looking at the process of creating. These include:
1. Model or no model
2. Original or unique combination versus a copy or adaptation of a “known” something (process, product, content, etc.)
Knowledge constructed socially is not knowledge at the knowledge level—during its construction, it was done at the highest levels of Bloom’s.

How do we define create so that it is not replicate or regurgitate? How do we develop a rubric that could be used by teachers to assess the qualities of the work they are asking students to produce? How often do we see “create” as we are talking about in our schools? I suggest we are far more likely to see “replicate” or “extend” or “adapt,” which are all important to some extent, but they are not “create.”

Is “create” the remix and mash ups that kids are into these days? (If we look at the remixes that are getting the airplay, it’s the rock song getting a reggae beat—a unique combination, often constructed socially globally, such as Stand By Me.) What’s the relationship between replicate, extend, adapt, re-vision (not revising), remix, and create?

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