WEEK 9 Multi-Cultural Teaching Continued (and the Bloom's!)

WEEK#9 10.29.2011        
"THE HIGHEST RESULT OF EDUCATION IS TOLERANCE." Helen Keller.
After our class discussion, I must say that respectively, I disagree with Helen Keller.  When we use concepts such as "tolerance", we are implying that one is doing just that...tolerating!  Mothers "tolerate" a nagging toddler.  A civil, knowledgable, and diverse society should not "tolerate" one another.  This reminds me of the magazine for educators, titled: Teaching Tolerance.  When introducing and teaching a culture to students, it is a privlige to become knowledgable by researching similarities and differences by starting with *one* (one region) and comparing it to our own.  I believe a good place to start is with the similarity that first and foremost, we are all *human-beings* who more than likely, share common core values and beliefs...

...and I think Benjamin Bloom would also disagree with Keller.  Bloom would argue that the highest result of education lies in the three objectives (or domains) that educators SHOULD set for students:
1) COGNTIVE (Knowing/Head) *Lowest to Highest:

1. Remembering Recall *Which, by the way, happens way TOO often in classrooms, and a form of higher learning is never attained!!!

2. Understading Comprehending: State a problem in one's own words.

3. Applying "Applying" what one has learned in the classroon in a new situation (workplace, etc.).

4. Analyzing Separates material or concepts into component parts so that its organizational structure may be understood. Distinguishes between facts and inferences.
5. Evaluating Make judgments about the value of ideas or materials.

6. Creating Builds a structure or pattern from diverse elements. Put parts together to form a whole, with emphasis on creating a new meaning or structure.

2) AFFECTIVE (Feeling/Heart)*Lowest to Highest:
1. Receiving Awareness, willingness to hear, selected attention.
2. Responding Active participation on the part of the learners. Attends and reacts to a particular phenomenon. Learning outcomes may emphasize compliance in responding, willingness to respond, or satisfaction in responding *(motivation)*.

3. Valuing The worth or value a person attaches to a particular object, phenomenon, or behavior. This ranges from simple acceptance to the more complex state of commitment.

4. Organizing Organizes values into priorities by contrasting different values, resolving conflicts between them, and creating an unique value system.

5. Internalizing (Characterization) Has a value system that controls their behavior.

3) PSYCHOMOTOR (Doing/Hands)*Lowest to Highest:
1. Perception The ability to use sensory cues to guide motor activity.

2. Set ~ Readiness to act. It includes mental, physical, and emotional sets. These three sets are dispositions that predetermine a person's response to different situations (sometimes called mindsets).

3. Guided Response The early stages in learning a complex skill that includes imitation and trial and error. Adequacy of performance is achieved by practicing.

4. Mechanism Learned responses have become habitual and the movements can be performed with some confidence and proficiency.

5. Complex Overt Response The skillful performance of motor acts that involve complex movement patterns.

6. Adaptation Skills are well developed and the individual can modify movement patterns to fit special requirements.
7. Origination Creating new movement patterns to fit a particular situation or specific problem.

According to Orlich, et al. (2004) Teaching Strategies: A Guide to Effective Instruction, learning at the higher levels is dependent on the what has been learned and skills at the lower level. 

The goal of Bloom's Taxonomy is to inspire educators to apply emphasis to all three domains:

1) Cogntive, 2) Affective, and 3) Psychomotor.

Within these three domains (combined) are where the highest results of education lie...

for all students! 

P.S. I know you've mentioned before that the education students at Wayne State University are familiar with Benjamin Blooms taxonomy, but the Art Education students are somewhat left in the dark. 

How ironic, since all three domains (cogntive, affective and psychomotor) are vital in every aspect of the *creative experience*

"It must be remembered that the purpose of education is not to fill the minds of students with facts ~
It is to teach them how to think." *Robert M. Hutchins*

Source(s): 

Orlich, et al. (2004) Teaching Strategies: A Guide to Effective Instruction, Houghton Mifflin.

Clark, D. R. Learning Domains of Bloom's Taxonomy http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html