Month: March 2015

Blooms Taxonomy in the 21st Century

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What would Benjamin Bloom think of his App Taxonomy today?

Mar 30, 2015

As I sat down for my first lecture in 2005 at Homerton College of Education at the University of Cambridge in 2003, I was introduced to something that, although I didn’t realize it at the time, would go on to become one of the most integral tools in my teaching armory…

Blooms Taxonomy.

At the time, I didn’t feel that it was much, rather just a piece of literature that some guy back in 50’s who wrote ‘Taxonomy of educational objectives: the classification of educational goals’, to gain his Phd at the University of Chicago. I didn’t fully understand or appreciate what impact it had had, and still has to today until I started to understand it.

12 years later, I find myself still referring to it on a daily basis to help guide and influence my teaching and advice I offer to others. I can now understand how important a piece of work it is and how strongly rooted in learning and critical thinking it is to support people as they learn to learn.

However…

Working on a piece of work for my Masters course which I am currently finishing, I was introduced to the SAMR model –

Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition

It is envisaged that this could have a positive impact on how technology should be allowed to become more of a tool to enhance learning and thinking and not just a tool to carry knowledge. I was astounded to see the Blooms Taxonomy wheel as I had never seem it before. Alan Carrington had taken the wheel and thrust it right into the 21st Century. When Bloom originally created it, of course he had but only a typewriter, pen and paper – these tools were certainly not looked upon as tools to allow learners to actively engage in learning, but as Carrington highlights, the equivalent of these tools today are no longer just communication tools, but rather tools to align pedagogical thinking on a new level. Aligning pedagogy possibilities with mobile devices; Blooms himself would’ve been happy with this I think.

Allowing technology to come in from the cold and not be viewed as simply a platform to access material and knowledge is one thing, but allowing it to become an integral part of learning is simply groundbreaking. The Blooms taxonomy wheel has been brought out of the black and white TV era and had USB, Wifi and Bluetooth thrown at it while being strapped to the digital online App revolution in education.

The sheer amount of Apps that have been categorized into the different learning levels on the wheel is mesmerizing, it has also become an interactive tool which will constantly update.

As we look to the future and the future teachers that are currently sitting their GCSE’s and A Levels, I think we will have to wait a while for the Apps to truly find a place to sit on a formal lesson plans objectives, as the current crop of teachers are still trying to get over the intrusion of the whiteboard and embrace cloud technologies, asking the majority to try this out would be educational suicide.

This aside then, I for one feel that same hair tingling sensation when I scan around the updated wheel as I did when I first got failing students in London to succeed or first realized that I was actually good at teaching, and it is for this reason that after 12 years in education I know I will continue to develop and embrace new ways of learning well into the future.

If you fancy reading more into it, check out this article :

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/05/a-new-wonderful-wheel-on-samr-and.html

Agree? Disagree? Dont care?

Tell me your thougths and feel free to share.

International Recruitment – Thinking Differently, no box required.

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Its that time of year when most people have attended the job fairs hosted by various educational recruitment consultancies around the world, hopefully landing the job they wanted, and I find myself pondering the differing experiences that everyone has had. Hopefully they will be shared later in this blog, but I wanted to address the reputation and success rate of this most congested, backhanded practice on the ‘International Circuit’ that goes on in hotel rooms, conference halls and convention centers and try to encourage a different way of thinking – no box needed.

I have direct experience in trying to find a job at the fairs (2 in fact as my partner at the time was also looking) and as I found myself battling through the mayhem and confusion I was myself contemplating if there was surely another way for me to shine. But, due to my ‘inexperience’s’ on the circuit I allowed the whirlwind to sweep me up and and went along for the ride. I eventually landed an offer, moved to the Middle East and am now coming to the end of three great years in that position.

Where am I going here? well now that I have 3 years experience on the international school circuit, I wanted to offer a little insight and maybe someone out there can benefit from my experiences and also be assured that the recruitment fairs aren’t everything, there are other ways to land the next job.

Back in September 2014 I found myself again considering my future and that of course meant deciding how to go about it. I immediately got out the schedules from the major recruitment fairs and worked out a travel schedule that Michael Palin would have been proud of to get to the top 4 fairs.

It was at this time that I also started thinking of other ways to attract employers to me and to try to convince people that I could bring something special to a team. As a trainee head hunter in my younger days, I remembered the impact I was able to deliver in speaking to people directly, problem was I also remembered how hard it was to tickle the ear of the person who I actually wanted to speak to. A case of the people I want to get in touch with are exactly the people who you need to book appointments with and usually have to go through 2 or 3 others first, they are very hard to speak to.

I remember thinking to myself, instead of me going to a recruitment fair, and following the endless herds of people battling to be considered by someone who probably had vague instructions to simply fill the position, I would try to go directly to the people who send the recruiters out to the fairs – the Principals.

I researched, investigated and built up links on every possible principal that I thought would be interested in what I had to say and would see the potential of having me on their team.

I then contacted them directly.

I knew the recruitment fairs where coming up and the deadlines where fast approaching. Of course, I made sure to have active profiles and registered to go to the big 4, but in my heart I new I wanted to do it differently, I saw myself as somebody who had more to offer than simply filling a vacancy. ( I think its important to say at this point that sometimes this might be the only option for some people, but for me I wanted to try a different way of thinking, a different approach.)

As it turned out, my time and effort in researching who the movers and shakers were paid off. Out of the 3 schools I had narrowed down from a list of 15 possibilities, I was now talking directly to the Principal, in their time about how they would benefit from my skills and experiences on their team.

How did I do it? That was the challenging part.

I spent the time figuring out who they were, where they came from, what they were interested in, but most importantly why they were at a school overseas, what their thoughts on education reform were, what educational policies they believed in and what type of Prinicpal they were.

As I contacted each of them on skype, email, LinkedIn and eventually by telephone, I realized that although I was cold calling; because I knew so much about them, I was able to connect with them straight away. Of course when I did my initial contacting, it was very professional and appropriate (I used Iris Shoors advice on how to approach cold emails , you can read it here – http://www.startupmoon.com/how-i-got-meetings-at-twitter-linkedin-and-github-using-cold-emails/) but more and more as I asked for a reply – it took 2 or 3 attempts in some cases, I eventually found myself sitting face to face on all 3 occasion’s, funny thing was – there was no job for me to apply for!

As discussions with each of the Principals developed, I began to realize that each of the leaders had saw something in me, although they did not have a specific position for me to apply for, each of them knew that they wanted me on their team. They could see the benefit.

For me this was an incredible achievement!

In the end, I had 3 offers, 2 were positions that existed, the third I was told would be created for me. I would have worked for any 3 of the Principals, but I was in the position where I could really figure out which establishment I could give the most to, have the greatest impact on, and which one felt right.

By the end of November 2014 I found myself in the position of being able to withdraw myself from all the recruitment fairs. I had landed a job by getting ahead of the game and proving that it can be done, if your prepared to put the hard graft in months in advance.

I am now looking forward to starting my new chapter in my life, and am also enjoying hearing the experiences of friends and colleagues at fairs, knowing that I didn’t have to travel anywhere and was secure before the recruitment fairs even started.

I would love to hear other peoples experiences and thoughts on landing a job, and although this is centered around education it can be taken and applied in any industry…

Iris Shoor talks about the marketing industry and what she did to get ahead, I just read her experiences and decided to get creative with my own solution.

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed it. All your comments are most appreciated.