Hey everyone. Welcome. Thank you so much for giving up your time to come and be with me today in this session, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do part one of a two-part series here. Looking at Bloom's taxonomy. And for this episode, I'm particularly gonna be focusing on the bottom of Bloom's taxonomy.
Now, before I get into blooms and start talking about, I know you’re saying, “I’m, familiar with blooms. I know about it.” Hang on a sec. We'll come to that and I'm gonna help you to expand and apply it a bit better, hopefully, but before I do.
Coming up in a couple of weeks, I am running an effective teaching video series. That's designed to help you reduce your workload. That's designed to help you to be more effective as a teacher in the classroom, and would talk to you about things that you need to be doing as a teacher, right? Four things to make you and to help you be an effective teacher long term. So if you would like to come and join that you can head over to teacherspd.net/etseries, and you can subscribe there to get the emails when those videos come out. But right now we are gonna talk about blooms, right?
Let's very quickly just kind of recap Bloom's taxonomy. Often it's depicted as a pyramid. And at the bottom of that pyramid, we have the idea of remembering. So students actually being able to, you know, recite something back to their teacher above that we have understand, which is their ability to. Trying to grasp the key elements of that next is apply.
So being able to apply the key elements of something into a context. And for me, I actually think about application in terms of multiple contexts. Then we go up to analyze, evaluate, and create, analyze being to make connections between things evaluating, to be able to come up with criteria. Critique and make a value judgment on something.
And then to create something is basically to produce your own original kind of work. So that's the pyramid. And the general thing with the pyramid is that students need to work at the bottom before they get to the top. And so students need to be doing the remembering the understanding and maybe some application right before, they get to analyze, evaluate, and create.
And so these are our three. Bottom or lower level learning, learning, right? I was gonna say learning activities, but they're not activities. So,
so the first thing I wanna talk to you about is how to actually help our students to remember things. So right down here at the bottom, which is the very basic thing that students need about to do is they need to be able to remember. information that we give them, whether it be something that they watch, they read, they listen to that, you know, we are presenting to them.
Well, they're having a discussion with a friend. There's lots of ways for them to get new pieces of information, but how do they learn to remember this? And I want to give you a few what maybe four techniques that you can use to help your students to remember information. So the first technique is the technique of connecting things in pairs.
And so you do this by. Go with a random list of information. So let's say at the beginning of the list is a tree. and the next thing on the list is a car. After that we're going to go to, I actually have a list in front of me, so I make stuff up and then try and remember them. But look, let's just start pairing them up and then I'll know that I'll remember them as I do this.
Okay. So let's go with a tree. So I'm gonna have a huge tree and I'm gonna pair it with the car. And so the car is gonna be crashed into this tree, right? The tree is falling down because the car crashed into it. Right. And that picture is gonna stick into my mind. The next thing on the list, let's go with, dogs.
Okay. So dogs are the next thing on my list. Dogs. I'm gonna pair that with the car. And so now I'm gonna have, let's say that there is a huge dog driving that car, and that is my picture as I've got tree car dog. And the next thing I want to do is, you know, let's say I've got saw dust is the next thing on my list.
Now I'm still pairing it with. But I'm gonna switch my context. I don't want my picture to become overly complicated in my head. I've got the tree, the car crashing into it with the dog driving it. So now I'm gonna connect sawdust with dog. And so I'm gonna picture a dog in my house. That's just, he's just rolled over in sawdust.
That's sawdust everywhere. He's shaking it off. My whole house is getting covered in sawdust because of a dog that's in there shaking around, trying to get it all off of him. And so now I've got my. I've got my car, got my dog, and I've got my saw dust and I can keep going like this. And you're just gonna change contents every couple of, images.
In fact, you can change every pair, right? I could go from saw dust. And then if I have to think of something else, that's a bit better. Let's go pot plant or something like that. I can then go, okay. I have a pot plant, but the pot plant is like a sculpture that's been made outta saw dust. Right. That's something that I'll remember.
And so then when I go through my list, I've got trees, car, dog saw dust, and then my pot plant. And it's just by creating these pairs and the pairs themselves should be visual and they should be a bit crazy. You wanna kind of come up with something it's a bit crazy. That's Memor. Ah, memorable, sorry, not memorable but that's memorable.
That'll stick in your head so that you can recall it and we're gonna teach, you should teach a student stuff like this. They're just basic strategies to help them to remember. That to them seem a little bit disconnected. And so it could be, you know, if, if I'm teaching and it's the OWA charter, right.
There's five action areas. I could pair those up. And then the students will remember the five and the remember them in a list. Right. So going through, you're pairing the first two things and then the second thing gets paired to the third. Okay. So each thing basically has two pairs except for the first and the last that's out connected in pair.
Another strategy to help students, to learn remembering and to remember and recall things is to get them to actually ask questions if they forget. So, so often we find ourselves or our students and we are trying to remember something and it's kind of on the tip of your time, but you just can't quite get there.
You're like, oh, where do I leave my keys? Right. Let's say it's that. But I know I came in, where did I leave? If you sit there and ask yourself, where are my keys? Where are my keys? You'll never break through to find them, but because our memories are connections, we can actually start to ask questions about things around our keys to help us define it.
And so we can start to say, well, when did I last see my keys? Did I take them with me when I went driving yesterday and this morning, what did I do this morning? Did, did I go out somewhere? Maybe I went and got the mail, right. And you just kind of go through your morning. You can just go through, what did I do this morning?
Walk through step by step by step. And you might then go, oh, that's right. I put my keys down. In my bag, that's next to the door because I'm gonna remember to leave. I already packed them. Okay. And you can do that with topics too. They can go, oh, what, what was the capital of, you know, Argentina? And so they start to ask themselves questions about what do they know about Argentina?
Is it, you know, whereabouts in the world is Argentina, what colors are on their flag, all that kind of stuff. And that will help them. Find a pathway through in their brain that will kind of move around a different connect, a lot of connections to find out what the capital is of Argentina. Another strategy that can be used is putting things in positions, in a room.
And so for example, you could think of a room that you know, really well. So I'm gonna use the room that's right in front of me. Right. And if there's things that I need to remember, let's go back to my paired list. Okay. And so I have a tree. Was my first thing on the list. And so I can say all right, in my room, as I walk into my room or let's just go from where I'm sitting here.
I can remember where I'm sitting here right at my door. I'm gonna have a big tree that's growing and blocking the door. Right. That's place. Number one, that's the first spot I'm looking. I'm then gonna move around my room. To the right as I go through and do this process, the next thing was a car. Okay. So I can't have a car in my room or maybe I can, okay.
Maybe I have a chair here. Right. That's the next item in my room. And so I'm gonna pair the car with the chair. And so now the car is like a transformer car sitting on that chair, having a chat to me and so great. I've got the tree next to the door. I've got the. At on that chair. Right. We're having a conversation.
The next thing was dogs. Right. And so the next it in my room is actually another chair. So two chairs kind of next to each other. So on this chair, right? Let's not let go with dog. Let's say that that chair looks like a dog, right? The dog. So dog shake chair. That's what I'm gonna try. Remember with that is I've got my treat.
My. Right. My car on the chair, my dog shape chair. I'm gonna keep going through my list. Okay. And if you remember the next one saw dust. Okay. And the next one was pot plant using that other imagery process. And so this is another way of imagining things, right? Giving those images, but you're gonna do it in a room.
And then there's a few tricks to this one is to make sure that you. One room for each topic. Right. And then cuz you don't wanna have multiple things in each chair. Right? I don't wanna go to that chair and say I'm meant to, is it my car, right? Is that meant to be thinking of with a transformer or I had, you know, a president of America on there.
I had a prime minister of Australia on there. I had, you know, I could have 600 things on that chair by the time I've done this multiple times. And so I might actually just move to another room. And so you start to create these rooms. Normally if you use a room you're familiar. Works a lot easier. So they might use your bedroom or your bathroom or walking in your front door, all kinds of stuff.
The four strategy is explicit connections. So our memories are all made by connections. So if we make explicit connections for our students and say, look, guys, you already know this case. And let's say that students already know what a marathon is. Right? And so now we're gonna connect marathons with aerobic training because marathons are aerobic.
And aerobic training then connects. So how would you train for a marathon?
You might do a whole bunch of repetitive, continuous type of training where you're just gonna go for a run. Okay. Lots of things that you can then bring into that. What do they need? Like lots of oxygen, all that kind of stuff. Okay. And so you're making these explicit connections for them to help them with their memory.
The second one is for them to help, help 'em with understanding now, understanding is for me, I, I actually link understanding and application. I personally don't think that you can understand something unless you can apply it in multiple different contexts. And so when I do this, I do application in two parts.
So there's one element where they can redo the same thing that I've done with them. So let's say I'm teaching them how to create a periodization. So I will do it for a sport. Let's say I do it for basketball and I put it up. There's my beautiful ization chart, which is just like a year's worth of training.
Right. for a sport. I have a year's worth of basketball training, kind of outlined on this periodization chart, the student then can do one for basketball. That is the first level of application. The second level is when they understand it and they can start to pull out the key aspects of the periodization chart to keep out, you know, macro cycles and micro cycles, all kinds of stuff.
If that doesn't make any sense to you. That's okay. But. Understanding the key elements that are outta that. And I'll make sure I explicitly said, this is key element. This is a key element. And then we are applying it to, you know, different things within basketball. And so now I want them to take the key elements out and apply it to soccer.
I want them to apply it to the NFL. I want 'em to apply, to apply it to netball. I want 'em to apply it to, you know, elite level athletes and apply it to low level. You know, I play for my club down the road type, retiring adult kind of level. And so by them demonstrating that they can do it at that level.
That's me seeing that they actually understand the key things in that and can then apply it. So they need two levels of application. And as you think about that, you just gotta. Give your students, lots of chances to apply things in different contexts. And that will really help them a lot with that process.
So your action then for this week is to teach your students one of the memory skills and for you to play with it with this kids. Okay. So maybe gonna do the connected pairs one. Maybe you'll do the positions in a room or you'll make explicit connections. Right. But those two are connected pairs and positions in a room.
They they're really well tried and tested things that this is what you, the me. This is what the memory experts do in like, you know, when they're memorizing a deck of cards type stuff. So you could do this with students and go, alright, I've taught you the strategy. Let's see how you go memorizing a deck of cards, right.
And not a whole deck. Right. Maybe start them off with seven cards, memorize them, add a few more memorize those. And you could just build out this connected pair sequence. And then suddenly the students are gonna be amazed at how much they can remember. And that's gonna blow away a bit of confidence with memory.
And that strategy, they can then apply to all their subject areas and you're going to have made their day and made their learning a lot easier. It also means if they remember it faster, you can move on into those higher levels of thinking like analyzing, evaluating, and creating with your students faster.
Now next week, we're gonna talk about the top levels of Bloom’s. I’ll give you a few tips and tricks around that, but in the meantime, don't forget, I am running a video series on effective teaching. I'm gonna talk to you about reducing your workload, how to be an effective teacher in your planning and in your classroom.
And also I'm gonna talk. About the key things that you need as a teacher to be an effective teacher long term. So make sure you go to teacherspd.net/etseries. If you are watching this on YouTube, you can click the link in the comments. It'll take you there, subscribe, and I'll make sure you get the emails when that video series starts to be released.
I hope to see you there and to help you to become an effective teacher.
