Lesson Planning Using Digital Bloom's

Video Transcription

Hello, and thank you for joining me today to discuss lesson planning using Digital Bloom's. By the end of today's tutorial, we will be able to answer the following essential questions. What does a lesson plan that incorporates Digital Bloom's look like? And what are some tips and strategies for using Digital Bloom's.

Let's begin by having a review of Digital Bloom's. As you can see, Digital Bloom's and any Bloom's taxonomy takes the form of a pyramid. On the bottom, we have the lower order thinking skills, such as remembering, which is just recall of teacher information.

On the top, we have the higher order thinking skills, which is creating. And this is where students are actually creating their own learning or creating products that incorporate their learning. And it's a higher order thinking skill. They're analyzing, they're synthesizing, et cetera.

So we make our way from the lower order thinking skills to the higher order thinking skills. I've included this graphic which you can also find on the Digital Bloom's tutorial. And I discuss it more in depth there.

But basically on the far left, we have Bloom's thinking skills. Then we have regular verbs that would be used to describe those thinking skills, so what exactly would the students be doing in the classroom for the original Bloom's taxonomy.

And then we have the technology verbs. And these are just verbs that incorporate Web 2.0. So instead of identifying for remembering, a student might be bookmarking for remembering, et cetera.

We're going to apply Digital Bloom's. And in this lesson, students will research a 20th century American historical event. So for the first one, which is remembering, students are doing things like searching and googling the historical event.

Next, we move on to understanding. Once they get a strong understanding of researching the historical event, so let's just say for the sake of conversation that this is World War II, they might start doing things like advanced searches on World War II. They might even start using databases.

A lot of schools are connected to universities that have databases or have their own databases that the students can use. And a lot of public libraries also offer databases. So they might be searching in those.

They might be tagging. They might be commenting on message boards that deal with this, that would further show their understanding. So they start out really basic.

What was the role of the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II? So they're researching that. And at this point, they're having a stronger understanding of that, and maybe even commenting on that.

And then we have applying. So at this point, they're uploading, sharing, and editing information about the role of the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II.

And then we go on to analyzing. They might start linking articles to other articles that they found about the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II. They might start pulling media clipping or creating media clipping. And they might also start mashing together different resources that they found, and finding a way that those are interlinked.

Next, we have evaluating. And this is where they're really showing their understanding because they're going to be finding sources and maybe they're thinking about, is this source actually factual. So this is blog commenting. This is moderating a site. This is testing their hypotheses about the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II and about their role or maybe about the way that they were treated, which goes back to using the scientific method in our learning.

And then they're also collaborating. And this could either be online or this could be within the class.

And then create it. They're going to create a product using Web 2.0 tools to show their understanding. And so they might create a podcast or a videocast. They might film something. They might animate something. They might even create a wiki.

And it's really important to remember that the creation product is really in terms of understanding and by design this is going to be their main performance assessment. And it needs to be authentic. And this is why Digital Bloom's is so really important in our modern day classrooms because when they create something and they put it out there for the world to see, their name is associated with it. And I don't think really that it can get more authentic than that, because their audience is the world.

And I think once kids start getting really into the process of, I've created a podcast, I've created a wiki that anybody can see, I think they start to really take more ownership in their work. And maybe they're more intentional on what they're doing.

So a couple of tips for using Digital Bloom's is get student feedback when you're planning. What sort of sources are they already using? And how can you incorporate those into the classroom?

So an example of this is most students all have smartphones. How can you incorporate a smartphone into the classroom? One really easy way that I do it is I used to do just like a handwritten exit ticket.

Now I have them post their exit ticket using their smartphone. And a website that I use for that-- but I'm sure there are limitless amounts of web sites we can use, you can probably even create your own class website-- but I use todaysmeet.com.

So for that, I just go in and I pose a question. And then they post their answer in the last five minutes of class using their smartphones. And then we can actually project that on the board and see it happening live. It's a really cool tool.

The other tip is don't use tools arbitrarily. We have to actually make sure that these tools are increasing the learning that's going on in the classroom.

And one way to make sure it's increasing learning is just having to be more engaging for students. They're going to be more interested in it when it's engaging. They like technology. They want to pull their iPhones out in the middle of class, so let them.

Make sure that you're allowing for differentiation of instruction. And then we talked about this a little bit in some other tutorials where we have to also make sure that there's equity. So maybe you want to use TodaysMeet, but maybe there's three kids in the class who don't have smartphones.

Make sure that you have a laptop for that kid or an iPad for that kid so that they can also post and be involved in the learning. So this goes back to bring your own device and one-to-one classrooms.

And then you also want to make sure that you are aligning your Digital Bloom's lesson outcomes to the actual Digital Bloom's triangle that we went over in the beginning of the tutorial.

So let's reflect really quickly. Can you name one level of Digital Bloom's you're already using in your classroom? And what level of digital Bloom's interests you most and why?

Let's recap what we talked about today. Today, we talked about what a lesson plan that incorporates Digital Bloom's looks like. And we also went over some tips and strategies for using Digital Bloom's.

To dive a little deeper and learn how to apply this information, be sure to check out the additional resources section associated with this video. This is where you'll find links targeted towards helping you discover more ways to apply this course material.

Thank you for joining me, and happy teaching.