Education: Increase Academic Performance Through Engaged Learning By Partnering Bloom and Krathwohl

What is engaged learning? From my experience and training it is when everyone within the classroom is actively engaged in the learning process to improve academic performance with a minimal amount of time being wasted. Unfortunately, the results from the Nation's Report Card tell us that young people are not performing at the levels required to compete as knowledge workers in the 21st Century.

To create an engaged learning environment requires that teachers have knowledge about how people learn. Many pre-service and experience teachers can recite the 6 categories within Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives:

Knowledge

Comprehension

Application

Analysis

Synthesis

Evaluation

However very few can with equal ease list the 5 categories within the Affective Learning Domain as identified by Krathwohl and colleagues:

Receiving

Responding

Valuing

Organization and Prioritizing

Internalize Values

Of course, listing them doesn't mean that they are being implemented into the daily lessons and achieving measurable learning results. And that is probably one of the reasons why improved performance in the classroom is not where it should be given the resources being expended and invested each and every day.

Let's be honest. Most young people especially those in middle school and high school know the following:

Be to school on time

Complete and submit assigned homework or projects

Speak when asked and do not interrupt

Submit neat work with your name, class, etc.

Keep your desk or locker clean and organized

Earn good grades

So, the real issue is not one of knowing, but rather one of wanting to do what is require. By partnering Krathwohl's taxonomy with Bloom's, teachers can increase the learning of a subject while changing beliefs and attitudes.

This partnership does take additional time. However when infusing these domains together, the increased academic performance outcomes far outweigh any perceived challenges. And, the extra benefit is that you spend far less time in classroom management and far more time in engaged learning.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith, President of ADVANCED SYSTEMS, works with large urban to private schools, certified staff, support staff, students and parents to improve performance in 30 to 180 days. Using proven tools, we can quickly and affordably identify the gaps in YOUR organization, provide you with an Action Plan that you can easily implement along with developmental programs from executive leadership to student leadership.