Sascha Feldmann

• Date: Thursday, 16-10-2014
• Amount of time: 
  • Lecture: 90 minutes
  • Literature: 30 minutes
• Literature:
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy

 Lecture

The learning goals that I could identify in today’s lesson are the following:

1. We are able to explain the term “learning goal”.
2. We know how to define our own learning goals and understand how they can support us in our learning process.
3. We can name at least one learning taxonomy.
4. We can see learning goals in Bloom’s taxononmy.

So let me check the 4 learning goals.

1. A learning goal is a precise formulation identifying what the students should be able to do after they visited a learning unit, course or even studied something.
2. I think, this learning goal can only be achieved by a lot of exercises. If you have to define the learning goal of a learning unit from the students’ perspective, there might be a difference to the learning goals that the teacher defined. With learning goals we can check ourselves if we achieved certain state after we visited a learning unit so we don’t loose the goals of it.
3. I can name “Bloom’s taxonomy”.
4. Bloom’s taxonomy is about knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and the evaluation. Learning goals are defined within those items by using special verbs. The verbs express the aim of each item, e.g. the student is able to describe something for the item “knowledge”.

 Literature

I really like the example questions for each item in Bloom’s taxonomy. They helped me to understand each item better.

• Knowledge: “What are the health benefits of eating apples?”. In German schools, this is called “Anforderungsbereich 1″.
• Comprehension: “Compare the health benefits of eating apples vs. oranges”. You need a broader understanding to answer to questions like this. In German schools, this item was called “Anforderungsbereich 2″ as I remember.
• Application: “Which kinds of apples are best for baking a pie, and why?”. This is the main focus of an university of applied sciences, isn’t it?
• Analysis: “List four ways of serving foods made with apples and explain which ones have the highest health benefits?”
• Evaluation: “Do you feel that serving apple pie for an after school snack for children is healthy?” I don’t really like this question because it contains some emotional part (“feel“). In general, this was called “Anforderungsbereich 3″ in the German school system.
• Synthesis: “Convert an “unhealthy” recipe for apple pie to a “healthy” recipe by replacing your choice of ingredients”. Isn’t this the key quality of each academic person? It’s about recombining knowledge to new innovative ideas.