Higher education tends to bow down to Bloom as the oracle of educational objectives. Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy, which ranks types of learning on six levels from “lowest” (remembering) to “highest” (creating), is a standard guide that almost all academic committees use in reviewing course proposals. While over the years Fink (2003) and others have tweaked the actual taxonomy, the message has remained the same: higher education should target learning at the higher rather than lower levels, and course developers and faculty should pitch their courses at these levels.
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Really good reminder John, and TOTALLY agree. Loved your statement, “That is where academia should be devoting its efforts: ensuring that learning activities meet learning outcomes.” You are right, we can get hung up on the fancy way we write our objectives without ensuring that the outcome is getting met for authentic learning.
Thank you for the reminder.