Taxonomies of Instruction and Instructional Planning Time

1. Taxonomies of Instruction and Instructional Planning Time Introduction to Teaching EDGE 2300 Orenthia D. Mason, Professor

2. Chapter 3 Teacher Planning(Conclusion)

3. Taxonomies are devices that classify and show relationships among things. • One taxonomy that has been a very useful tool for making decisions about instructional objectives and for assessing learning outcomes has been Bloom’s Taxonomy for Educational Objectives. • This taxonomy was initially developed by Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues in the 1950s (Bloom, 1956)

4. It has been revised by a group of Bloom’s students (Anderson et al., 2001) and renamed for learning, teaching, and assessing. • The revised taxonomy provides a framework for classifying learning objectives and a way for assessing them.

5. Bloom’s revised taxonomy is two dimensional. One dimension, the knowledge dimension, describes different types of knowledge and organizesknowledgeinto four categories: • factual knowledge • conceptual knowledge • procedural knowledge • metacognitive knowledge

6. Categories of the Knowledge Dimension: • Factual knowledge: the basic elements that students need to know to be acquainted with a topic. • Conceptual knowledge: the interrelationships among basic elements • Procedural knowledge: how to do “something.” • Metacognitive knowledge: knowledge about one’s own cognition as well as knowing when to use particular conceptual or procedural knowledge.

7. The second dimension, the cognitive processdimension, contains six categories: --remember, -understand, -apply, -analyze, -evaluate, and -create. • Remembermeans to retrieve relevant information from long-term memory • Understand means to construct meaning from instructional messages

8. Apply means to carry out or use a procedure • Analyze means to break material into its constituent parts and determine how the parts relate to one another • Evaluateand Createmean to make judgments based on criteria, and to put elements together to form a new pattern or structure.

9. The Affective Domain • Bloom’s original taxonomy divided the objectives in the affective domain into five (5) categories. Each category specified the degree of commitment or emotional intensity required of students.

10. The five categories are: -Receiving-The student is aware of or attending to something in the environment. • Responding-The student displays some new behavior as a result of experience and responds to the experience. • Valuing-The student displays definite involvement or commitment toward some experience.

11. Organization-The student has integrated a new value into his or her general set of values and can give it its proper place in a priority system. • Characterization by value- The student acts consistently according to the value and is firmly committed to the experience.

12. The Psychomotor Domain • We normally associate psychomotor activity most closely with physical education and athletics, but in fact, many other subjects requirephysical movement of one kind or another. (ex. Handwriting, work processing, work in laboratories for science students, eye coordination in visual art; hand coordination in producing this art; using audiovisual equipment; communicating with facial expressions and hand gestures.)

13. Planning Time • Lesson Plans and Unit Plans • Daily Planning: A teacher’s daily plan is the one that receives the most attention. In most schools, it is required. • Daily Plans: outline what content is to be taught, motivational techniques to be used, specific steps and activities for students, needed materials, and evaluation processes. The amount of detail may vary.

14. Weekly and Unit Planning • Most schools and teachers organize instruction around weeks and units. • A unitis essentially a chunk of content and associated skills that are perceived as fitting together in a logical way. • Normally, more than one lesson is required to accomplish a unit of instruction. • The unit plan links together a variety of goals, content, and activities the teacher has in mind.

15. When unit plans are put into writing, they serve as a reminder that some lessons require supporting materials, equipment, motivational devices, or evaluation tools that cannot usually be obtained on a moments’ notice. • Over time, experienced teachers develop unit plans and supporting materials that can be used. • Most beginning teachers will have to rely on textbooks and curriculum guides.

16. Two notes of caution are worth mentioning, however. • First, some beginning teachers, particularly in middle schools and high schools, rely heavily on their college textbooks or the course and unit plans of their college instructors. • These plans and materials are not ever appropriate for younger learners, who are not ready for the advanced content found in the college course.

17. Second, there are teachers who, after several years of experience, rely on textbooks for planning and sequencing their instruction. Teaching and learning are creative, evolutionary processes that should be keyed to a particular group of students at a particular point in time. Only when this is done can lessons rise above the humdrum and provide students with intellectual excitement.

18. Yearly Plans • Yearly plans are also critical but, because of the uncertainty in most schools, cannot be done with as much precision as daily or unit plans. • The effectiveness of yearly plans generally revolves around how well they deal with the following three features:

19. Overall Themes and Attitudes: • Most teachers have some global attitudes, goals, and themes they like to leave with their students. Coverage: • There are few teachers who run out of things to do. Instead, the common lament is the time runs out with many important lessons still to be taught. • Planning to cover desired topics requires asking what is really important to teach, deciding on priorities, and attending carefully to the instructional hours actually available over a year’s time.

20. Cycles of the School Year: • The school year is cyclical and some topics are better taught at one time than another. School cycles and corresponding emotional or psychological states revolve around the: • opening and closingof school, • the days of the week • vacation periods • the changes of season • holidays, and • important school events

21. As beginning teachers, you will know something about these cycles and corresponding psychological states from your own student days.

22. Time-tabling Techniques to Assist Unit and Yearly Planning • Time-tabling: • A time table is a chronological map of a series of instructional activities or some special project the teacher may want to carry out. • It describes the overall direction of activities and any special projects the teacher may want to carry out.

23. The most straightforward time-tabling technique consists of constructing a special chart called a Gantt Chart. • A Gantt Chart allows you to see the work pieces in relation to each other—when each starts and finishes.

24. Gantt Chart

25. Time • The management of classroom time is a complex and difficult task for teachers. • Essentially, the research validates what experienced teachers have always known: • The time available for instruction that appears to be so plentiful when the year begins soon becomes a scarce resource.

26. Seven Categories of Instructional Time • Total time • This is the total time students spend in school. In most cases, this is180 days of schoolper yearand from6 to 7 hoursof schooleach day.

27. Attended time -This is the amount of time that students actually attend school. This excludes: sickness, broken heating systems, and snow days.

28. Available Time • Some of the school day is spent on lunch, recess, pep rallies, and other extracurricular activities, and consequently, is not available for academic purposes.

29. Planned Academic Time • A certain amount of time set aside for different subjects and activities. (Written in the Lesson Plan Book)

30. Actual Academic Time • The amount of time the teacher actually spends on academic tasks or activities. • This is also called opportunity to learn and is measured in terms of the amount of time teachers have their students on a given task. .

31. Engaged Time • The amount of time students actually spend on a learning activity

32. Academic Learning Time (ALT) • The amount of time a student spends engaged in an academic task at which he or she is successful.

33. Space • The arrangement of materials, desks, and students is another important resource that is planned and managed by teachers. • The way space is used affects the learning atmosphere of classrooms, influences classroom dialogue and communication, and has important cognitive and emotional effects on students. • Effective teachers develop an attitude of flexibility and experimentation about classroom life.

34. In Preparation for the Test • Be very familiar with: • The four (4) categories of the Knowledge Dimension –pp. 116-117 • The cognitive and • affective domains of Bloom’s Taxonomy –pp. 118-121 • The seven (7) categories of Instructional Time –pp.128-129

35. Be prepared to respond to these questions in writing: • What is the purpose of instructional planning? • Why should a teacher write lesson plans? • How can classroom space affect student learning?