Bloom’s Taxonomy vs. Webb’s Depth of Knowledge

Michelle WilliamsMerrydale Elementary

Agenda

• Introductions• Bloom’s Taxonomy and

Webb’s• Thinking in the Classroom• The Seesaw Effect• Problem Solving• Identifying Misalignments

Bloom’s Taxonomy

• Developed in 1948 by Benjamin Bloom

• Acquiring knowledge• Levels are successive• Focuses on students’

cognitive ability or thinking

Webb’s Depth of Knowledge

• Created by Norman Webb• Is descriptive and not a taxonomy• Measures the depth of knowledge

of tasks• Verbs alone do not determine the

DOK level• DOK level is determined by

complex thinking and reasoning skills

“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them

think, they'll hate you.” ― Don Marquis

Thinking

What Does Thinking Look Like in the Classroom?

• Skillful thinking must be cultivated

• Model thinking• Recognizing how we think

• Cognition and content are inseparable

Types of Thinking

• Analytical thinking- analyze, compare & contrast, and evaluate information

• Practical thinking- apply learning to real life scenarios

• Creative thinking- create, design, imagine, and suppose

• Research-based- explore and review ideas, models and solution to problems

The Seesaw Effectthinking is

the processmodeled

bythe

teacherproblem solving is

the product

Bloom’sTaxonomy

Webb’s Depth of

Knowledge

Can Students Solve Problems in Text Based Subjects?

• Abstraction- leaving out one of the characteristics of an item

• Improving solutions- providing a solution to a problem or asked to improve a solution to a problem

• Generating ideas- creating analogies and an idea list or representations

• Relevant/irrelevant information- identifying information need or not need to solve a problem

Teaching

“Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare.” 

― Harriet Martineau

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so

few engage in it.” ― Henry Ford

What Does a Misalignment Look Like?

Objective: the learner will explain how schools were different for wealthy and common Aztec children

Objective: the learner will solve problems using the tape diagram

Contact Information

mwilliams@fuelgreatminds.com

www.fuelgreatminds.com

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