What structure do we need in our instruction? Appling Instructional Design Techniques?

           I remember when I was younger, my family would go to Knoebels Grove Amusement Park each year in Elysburg Pennsylvania. One of my favorite spectacles was the woodcarver’s shed where skilled craftsmen would carve away at shapeless logs unveiling a marvelous work of art such that only imagination could conceive. They made the process appear to be one of ease to casual onlookers, but their work was no small task by any measure. Each detail, each crater, each carve had to be carefully executed—even the slightest mistake in their planning and execution would tarnish the entire piece. Through their planning, dedication and attention to detail, these artists seldom failed to deliver such unique pieces of art. Customers were eager to pay a pretty price for their statuesque figures of the forest. Their work spoke for itself and anyone who saw such work were eager to buy.

            What do teachers produce? Well you might argue that teachers produce educated students. You might say that they don’t produce work at all, but rather are facilitators that help students to produce their own work. Much more perplexing than this question, how exactly does a teacher evaluate their teaching? How do we know we’ve taught effectively? Unlike the woodcarver, we haven’t a finished product we can look to or sell. After all, we have no art to sell, no profit to turn, no customers. Yet here we are, teaching. Here we are with investors of our trade who see some value in it. What are our goals, and better yet, how do we evaluate those goals to determine if we’ve been effective or not?

 

Why are Objectives Important?

             Well as it turns out, teachers do produce an outcome, and we do have a way of determining if that outcome has been satisfactory or not. The hallmark of the teacher’s trade is the classroom objective. Our objectives for learning are standards we set for our students (and by extension, ourselves) that are used to determine if what we are teaching is being learned. They provide a means by which we assess the progress of our students, as well as provide feedback on how well we were able to teach to those standards. Teachers produce students who can accomplish those objectives and apply what they learn in our classroom to real-world situations and needs.

 

How Does Bloom’s Taxonomy Impact Instructional Design?

So with objectives being our outcome—what we teach to and produce students capable of accomplishing, we need to examine what these objectives look like. By virtue of being a measurable outcome, objectives are stated as actions that can be completed after instruction. They are to be quantifiable skills or behaviors that we can expect of students after receiving instruction. With this, there are varying degrees by which one can understand or accomplish a given task. For example, if one were to list the tools used in carving a wood statue would they be able to actually carve it? If someone can carve a small limb, is this the same as carving a log? Although each of these measurable skills pertain to the same topic, they each represent only a partial understanding of what it means to carve wood. Each may be considered an important step along the way to carving like the pros, but they are not the same, nor do they require the same skills.

                Bloom’s taxonomy organizes these levels of understanding in a way that corresponds them with their required level of understanding. To list the tools needed in wood carving requires less understanding than to use those tools, and using those tools requires less understanding than to carve a statue with those tools. Carving with those tools requires less understanding than to evaluate the effectiveness of those tools in their carving ability. Because our goal as teachers is not to dispense facts, but to teach students how to think, we rely on Bloom’s taxonomy to build from a basic or nonexistent understanding, to an appreciation and masterful understanding of our content.

How can Group Teaching Techniques Be Effective?

                Remember how our goal as teachers is not to teach students what to think, but how to think? We are not dispensers of content, but facilitators of learning, which is a goal often best demonstrated through group work. When we arrange students into groups and allow them to work through issues among themselves we take the backseat and give students charge over their own learning. Not only that, but students build important social skills and combine their unique efforts into a common goal. This can help maximize student learning by delegating some of our responsibility as an instructor and placing the charge for individual learning on our students shoulders where it belongs. This does not mean we remain unengaged as the teacher, but that we assist and facilitate rather than be the “sage on the stage.” When group teaching is organized, and groups are structured in a meaningful way, then group teaching can be effective. For example, instead of just dividing the class into groups, I can give each group a task to be in charge of.  Group teaching is effective when each member of each group contributes, and each group contributes in its own right to the learning of the class as a whole.