Bloom's Taxonomy

If you've been kicking around the education game for any time at all, Bloom's Taxonomy would have grazed your consciousness.

• Knowledge
• Comprehension
• Application
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• Evaluation

At my regular fortnightly meeting this week with my Year 12 student mentor group - half a dozen fabulous kids! - I used this to get them thinking about how they learn, not just the ever-demanding what they learn.  We went round the table, with each nominating one subject and the level at which they thought they were currently operating in that subject.  From thinking about themselves, and considering the answers of their colleagues, it gave them food for thought.

I used the version I found here. (There are a whole bunch of great links and content on that site about study skills).  It includes very handy lists of verbs associated with each level in the taxonomy; verbs that the students could link to the wording/requirements of questions/assignments etc. 

For senior students, there is real value in encouraging them to take that step back to consider how they learn, and thus how they might develop/improve, and Bloom's Taxonomy is but one tool that helps this process.

Cheers

Ruth

PS I know the picture (taken using Hipstamatic!) is a pretty bad pun - but at least it's pretty!

Habits and senior students

I've been part of a team presenting a study skills program to Year 11 students this term, aiming to bed them down effectively with the tools they need to handle the demands and requirements of senior studies effectively.

Image source

The habits they have, and the habits they need are not always the same thing.  And change is never easy.

Came across this blog entry about habits and how to change them - and why it is so hard; which will be worth sharing through study skills and with my Year 12 mentor students.

The summary is this:

1. Most of our day-to-day actions are ruled by habit, custom, and environment.


2. Reflective thinking/planning goes a long way towards finding new things to do, but it’s still very easy to default to habits, custom, and environment.

3. The process of changing habits and customs takes a while. I call it “scratching and clawing forwards” – that’s what it feels like sometimes.

4. Set small, achievable goals on habit/custom change. I recommend aiming for 70% success rates, and making consistent incremental progress.

5. The biggest bang for your buck in the short term is moving your environment around. This can be big stuff like finding a new place to hang out after work, or little stuff like setting your gym clothes by your shower the night before. It works.

Cheers

Ruth

Found indirectly via Twitter

Image is Creative Commons licensed, from Flickr.

Creating effective surveys

I've just been compiling/creating the evaluation survey for the senior study skills program for Year 11 in which I've been involved through this term.

SurveyMonkey (mentioned previously on this blog) is what I've been using; the school has subscribed to this so we can create more detailed surveys than the free option allows (note that there is a free option, though!).

Toddling around the FAQ, I discovered that there is a fabulous freebie there, an information booklet pdf, Smart Survey Design.

Here's what that text says under the title:

This guide provides information on writing successful and effective survey questions, creating survey flow and layout, calculating response rates, tips for increasing response rates, and the pros and cons of online surveys. (Plus an appendix of links and works cited for additional help in survey design.)

And doesn't that sound handy-dandy for all those students in subjects like Society and Culture who create surveys as part of the process involved in their PIPs (personal interest projects) etc?

I've filled out some doozies for those (teacher librarians being notoriously easy to find at break times/study periods, so they can be asked to fill in surveys).  My fave are the ones that divide the world into ages in this kind of style:

• 12-13
• 14-15
• 16-17
• 18-23
• over 23

(because over 23 is, of course, OLD!  Sometimes they might go, 24-30, 40-60... Bless!)

I'll be popping this link on over to the Society and Culture teachers, and any others with subjects where the kids have to compile surveys.

Cheers

Ruth

Need to Want: brilliant flashcards

One of my most consistently useful Twitter contacts is @brainpicker.  I'm often bookmarking links from those tweets.  The associated blog, Brain Pickings, is also worth delving through for gems, ideas, inspiration.  For example, this entry on Erin Hanson's Need to Want series.

I enjoyed Brain Pickings' analysis of these.

The ones I've chosen for here are the ones that most caught my attention as being of use for the study skills program I'm doing for Year 11 this term.

It's not what the kids will expect: always a good way to grab their attention and get them learning in spite of themselves.  I suspect this next one won't be the most popular with them, though.

Find the whole set here (source of these images), and the philosophy informing it:

And can buy prints of these from the artist at her online shop here.  (if you can't see the one you want, convo her (that's Etsyspeak for contact via Etsy email)).

Cheers
Ruth

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy

Find the original here.  I discovered it via Twitter.  Another image to share with my senior students when discussing study skills.  Maybe a task that gets them to work out the hierarchy?......  And of course one to share with my teaching colleagues.

Cheers

Ruth

21st Century Learners

and this

are both by Peter H. Reynolds and can be found at Thinkfinity.org here.

Wonder what the kids would say about themselves?   Hmmm, that could be an interesting task for the Year 11 study skills program...

Cheers

Ruth

Measuring your use of time

Toddling about the internet, collecting resources and ideas for the senior study skills program, I came across this article: "I shipped in 2010 - you can too" by Doug Johnson on his Blue Skunk blog.  While his main focus is on the extras he did related to his work, such as conference presentations, papers and articles, one sentence jumped out at me for its use with students.

I personally measure my days not whether they were happy or unhappy, but whether they were productive or unproductive.

One aspect of my work as a teacher is talking with students about their work.  They sit in my office and tell me their successes, failures, concerns.  Sometimes, tissues are involved. It's always been part of my work, not only through mentoring programs etc but also just because I'm findable, there, a listening ear. Thinking over what they say, often enough it is about happiness - "I feel terrible" "Nothing is working" etc - stuff related to feelings/emotions.

The rest of the paragraph reads like this:

Did I have a fruitful conversation or meeting? Did I get something finished? Did I write something worth sharing? Did I read something challenging? Did I do an hour's worth of physical activity? Did I clean up a mess, revise an article, or organize something for the future? Did I do something that made my own life or someone else's just a tad better?


Looking at this idea, it's one I plan to try with students, and see how it can be worked into the study skills program, too.  Refocusing from emotions (so much trickier to wrangle) to more measurable activities/achievements that can be done/replicated and from which positive feelings can flow seems like a useful idea to play with.  I'm not saying that feelings aren't important, but rather that this is a way to get from the tissues/tears/frustrations/sense of impotence/being stuck that some of those students have when they plonk themselves in a chair in my office, and help them onwards.  From a study skills program perspective, it also points a way from the emotional to the measurable, helping students to progress.

Cheers

Ruth

Effective study: ethnicity vs good habits

There is, wandering about in the education world, an assumption by some that the success of some ethnic groups is related to their ethnicity.  A recent SMH article, reporting on a  DET NSW forum, debunks this.  Chinese students top the tests out of habit, not ethnicity, study shows, by Anna Patty was published on 29 December 2010.  (nb: sometimes the SMH only leaves articles up free for a couple of weeks, and then you have to pay - try the link, but apologies if it doesn't work).

Key points:

• The place where children do their homework - whether at a desk or in front of the television - may play a big role in how well they do at school
• ''Successful students see homework as a daily routine,'' Mr Coutts-Trotter said. ''They have a desk of their own and a school and family that help them develop scholarly routines.
• "Visiting libraries regularly is another thing successful students do.''
• Children do better sitting at a desk than on a bed; implies a different attitude
• From primary school, some groups establish better habits - study each day, and for longer.  In the year 3 group studied, the children of Chinese background spent about an hour every night of the week, compared with children of Pacific Islander background - 10 minutes for two to three nights a week - and Anglo Australian children - about 20 minutes on only some nights during the week.
• Socio-economic background wasn't necessarily a factor in success/failure - good habits helped at any level

I'm interested in this because I'm working on a study skills program for Year 11 which will be running in term 1 this year.  This sort of information demonstrates that students can choose how successful they are; one theme running through the program will be the small choices that add up to greater achievement.  Time.  A desk.  Habits.

I've been bookmarking some resources for this program over in my Delicious Diigo; I'll likely highlight some here, but if you want to toddle over there for a squizz, you're very welcome (there is a preview of the most recent ones over on the right).  If you have ideas/bookmarks you'd like to share in return, please do leave a comment.

Cheers

Ruth

Resources for Study Skills

I'm working on a Year 11 study skills program for next year, and this page of links has an extensive list of sites - some more useful than others, but a lot that are useful.  Worth a squizz.

Cheers

Ruth