The Educator as Chiropractor: Making Adjustments for Alignment

Summative Assessment. Two big words that cause a collective groan by students...if they know what it means.  By now my students know that it's fancy teacher language for "test." In my classroom, as in many, there are a number of formative assessments coupled with guided and independent practice, as well as opportunities to demonstrate skill before arriving at the summative assessment. The little adjustments made along the journey are integral in terms of providing quality instruction...but that is likely not new or innovative.

Inspecting your instruction and the elements of your lesson design can provide a clearer understanding of how well you are aligned to the intended curriculum.  Using the revised Bloom's Taxonomy Table by Anderson and found in A Taxonomy of Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, you can easily plot your learning target (objectives, learning goals, etc.), the activities you do to achieve mastery of the target, and the assessment. A great model of this table is available from Iowa State University's Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. Another great resource is Bloom's Digital Taxonomy from Andrew Churches. Both resources are helpful in guiding where you place the learning target and the activities on the taxonomy table. 

For example, my learning target "I will be able to analyze bias in mass media through viewing commercials and reading articles" falls under the "Analyze" component of the Cognitive Process Dimension. In my mind, that is the easy part. To verify though, I look at the indicators for the "Analyze" section. I notice the cognitive process is "Attributing" as it falls under the qualification of "...students ascertaining the point of view, bias, values or intention underlying communications"(Anderson, 82). Now I need to figure out where this learning target falls on the Knowledge Dimension. My first inclination is to suggest that this objective falls in to the Conceptual Knowledge area, specifically- Knowledge of Classifications and Categories. My reasoning for that is students were to know the concept of bias. However, after looking closer at the second part of the target there is a specific task "...through viewing commercials and reading articles." This changes  my final analysis and I would say it should be categorized as Procedural Knowledge, specifically Subject-Specific Techniques and Methods as it involves the methods for evaluating bias in specific settings.  There are specific elements you look for to determine if something is biased and therefore there is a method to defining and understanding bias.

Your objective will fall in to one cell of the table.  However, meeting that objective will require some different teaching methods and activities, so the complexity of the table increases as you see the number of ways students are asked to think and grow. You will likely move around the Knowledge Dimension and the Cognitive Process Dimension.  Which is good...you are asking students to think and learn in more than just one cell, likely causing better understanding and greater learning but the student.  This allows you to also see if you are doing much in terms of higher order thinking activities.

SNAP, CRACK, POP. You are performing chiropractic care to your instructional methods. You are adjusting instruction to effectively meet the needs of your learners.  Maybe you are too focused on the factual knowledge side of things.  Perhaps you notice that you spend more time on procedural knowledge than anything else and you could add in some metacognitive activities or even some conceptual knowledge before automatically dwelling in the procedural world.

Whatever the case, when we adjust, align, assess and use more than just formative assessment to make adjustments to our instruction and engage in meaningful, reflective practices- everyone feels better. You'll likely have less headaches, too.


Reference
Anderson, Lorin W., and David R. Krathwohl. A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York: Longman, 2001. Print.