developing essential (power) standards with rbt

Developing Essential (Power) Standards in North Carolina:

Using the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy

(RBT)Staff Presentation, December 18, 2008

Jerrie W. Brown, Content Lead for Social Studies Assessments

North Carolina State University

Center for Urban & Community Services

Technical Outreach for Public Schools (TOPS)

SBE Mandates

• Essential Standards

• RBT Cognitive Framework

• Horizontal and Vertical Alignment

• 21st Century Skills

• New State Assessments (Summative, Benchmark and Formative)

• Multiple Choice, Constructed Response and Performance Task Item Types

J. Brown, NCSU, 2008 2


Essential Standards

Ainsworth’s Criteria for Identifying Power (Priority) Standards:E = endurance Will the knowledge and skills to which this

standard relates be used by students for several years beyond this grade level?

L = leverage Will the knowledge and skills to which this standard relates help students in other academic areas?

R = readiness Do teachers in the next higher grade regard this standard as a prerequisite for students to enter that grade with success and confidence?

Why objectives?

• We can teach what we want to teach and hope that our students learn something. If we opt for this choice, we must recognize that what they learn will likely depend on the students themselves and what they bring to the course.

• We can formulate statements of what we intend for students to learn from our teaching and share them with our students. In educational jargon, these “statements of learning intentions” are called “objectives.”

(Lorin W. Anderson, 2008)

In education, objectives help us

• Decide our emphasis in the course. Of all the things we could teach, what should we teach?

• Decide how best to teach. Teaching students to analyze is fundamentally different from teaching students to memorize.

• Decide how best to determine whether students learned what we expected them to learn in the course. Do I need a project or a final exam?

• Most importantly, perhaps, is that objectives communicate our decisions on these matters to our students.


All objectives have a common format!

Subject Verb Object

S V O

Subject Verb Object

S V O


In education, the SUBJECT of a statement of objectives is the student or the learner.

• The student will …

• Students will …

• The student should …

• Students should …


This is NOT an objective!

Objective: This course emphasizes the historic, economic, geographic, political, and social structure of various cultural regions of the world from the dawn of civilization to 1900. Special attention is given to the formation and evolution of societies into complex political and economic systems.


The OBJECT of the statement of objectives is derived most often from the

course content.• literary movements in American literature from

1865 to the present. • mechanical behavior of tissues in the human body • the development of international adjudication • the subsurface environment of sedimentary basins• politics, collective behavior, and social change• classical Latin prosody

1. The study of the metrical structure of verse.2. A particular system of versification.(Lorin W. Anderson, 2008)

Having considered the SUBJECT and the OBJECT, that leaves us with the VERB. In simplest terms, the VERB connects the student to the content.


Connecting students to content

• The student should [VERB] literary movements in American literature from 1865 to the present.

• The student should [VERB] the development of international adjudication

• The student should [VERB] mechanical behavior of tissues in the human body


From 1996 – 2001, I [Anderson] worked with 7 educators to rework a very famous classification system for objectives developed by Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues more than a half-century ago. Known as Bloom’s Taxonomy, this system contains six categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation.


Based on developments in cognitive psychology and research on teaching and learning, we changed the category labels

from nouns to verbs.

• Remember• Understand• Apply• Analyze• Evaluate• Create


By inserting one of these verbs into the VERB space, we can get the following.

• The student should ANALYZE literary movements in American literature from 1865 to the present.

• The student should UNDERSTAND the development of international adjudication

• The student should APPLY knowledge of the mechanical behavior of tissues in the human body to the design of prosthetics.


• The verb represents the cognitive processes that students should use to learn the content.

• In somewhat oversimplified terms, learning occurs when the content, which initially is outside the student, gets inside the student. This movement from “outside” to “inside” takes place through the cognitive processes used by the student as specified in objectives by the verbs.

• If students choose to remember, they will not necessarily understand. If they understand, that does not necessarily mean that they can do anything with that understanding (i.e., apply).

Why is the verb important?


In today’s world, learning is too important to be “hit or miss.”

• Objectives forge a connection between teaching and learning, between teachers and students.

• Objectives take much of the “guessing” out of the student’s attempt not only to learn, but to demonstrate their learning.

• Objectives enable students to “student” better. The better they “student,” the more likely they will learn … and learn what you deem important for them to learn if they are to truly master the content of the course.


And so we return to our two choices

• We can teach what we want to teach and hope that our students learn something. If we opt for this choice, we must recognize that what they learn will likely depend on the students themselves and what they bring to the course.

• We can formulate statements of what we intend for students to learn from our teaching and share them with our students. In educational jargon, these “statements of learning intentions” are called “objectives.”


How will North Carolina choose?

On Student-Centered Learning Outcomes:

If there was just one thing you would want your students to learn from your course, what would that be? This single question is the basis for identifying student-centered learning outcomes. Learning outcomes describe the measurable skills, abilities, knowledge or values that students should be able to do or demonstrate as a result of completing a program of study, a course or lesson.

Dr. Lorin W. Anderson, Carolina Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of South CarolinaAugust 28, 2008

A Starter Set of the Rules

• All objectives must be written in SVO form.• An objective can have ONE AND ONLY ONE

verb.• Each objective must be an EDUCATIONAL

objective, not a GLOBAL nor an INSTRUCTIONAL objective (see RBT, p.17).

• Each objective must be written with an “eye to the future.” What do students need to learn to be successful at the next level?


Starter Set, page 2

• Each objective must be assessable. To ensure assessability, a prototypical assessment task must be written for each objective at the same time that the objective is written.

• As a set, the objectives associated with a course or grade level must be “teachable” within the time allocated for teaching that course or at that grade level.


Develop Curriculum Maps

3 minimal requirements (so far):(1) essential standard

(2) sample assessment task

(3) time needed to teach the standard


Cognitive TransitionOldOld – One DimensionThinking Skill Levels

(Marzano, 1988)

NewNew – Two DimensionsCognitive Processes and Knowledge Types

(Anderson, 2001)

6. Create

5. Evaluate

4. Analyze

3. Apply

2. Understand

1. Remember

7. Evaluating

6. Integrating

5. Generating

4. Analyzing

3. Applying

2. Organizing

1. KnowingA. Factual

B. Conceptual

C. Procedural

D. Meta-Cognitive


Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (RBT) Table for Civics and Economics, 2009

KnowledgeDimension

(Lower Order = 0%) Cognitive Process Dimension (Higher Order = 0%)

1.Remember

2.Understand

3.Apply

4.Analyze

5.Evaluate

6.Create

A. FactualKnowledge (0%)

B.ConceptualKnowledge(0%)

C.ProceduralKnowledge(0%)

D.Meta-CognitiveKnowledge(0%)

Adapted from Anderson, Lorin W. and David R. Krathwohl, et al., (2001).


Hybrid Anderson/Bloom/Marzano Taxonomy Table for Civics and Economics, 2003

KnowledgeDimension

(Lower Order = 28%) Levels of Thinking and Reasoning (Higher Order = 72%)

1.Knowing

2.Organizing

3.Applying

4.Analyzing

5.Generating

6.Integrating

7.Evaluating


6.04 1.03, 4.03


2.01, 2.07

3.01, 3.07

5.02, 6.02

1.06, 1.08

7.03, 7.06

8.01

8.04, 10.04 1.01, 1.02

2.06, 2.08

3.04, 3.05

3.08, 4.01

4.05, 4.06

4.07, 7.01

8.07, 9.02

9.08, 10.05 2.05

1.04, 2.02, 2.03, 3.02 3.03, 8.05 8.06, 10.01

9.06 1.05, 1.07

8.08, 9.04

10.02, 10.03


6.03, 9.01 6.07 4.04, 4.08

4.09, 6.01

10.06

2.04, 2.09

3.06, 3.09

4.02, 5.03

5.06, 6.06

7.04, 8.02

8.09, 9.07

5.05, 7.02

7.05, 8.03

9.03, 9.05

6.05 5.01, 5.04

6.08

D.Meta-CognitiveKnowledge

Adapted from works by Robert Marzano, et al., (1988) and Anderson, Lorin W. and David R. Krathwohl, et al., (2001).


Hybrid Anderson/Bloom/Marzano Taxonomy Table for United States History, 2003

KnowledgeDimension

Lower Order = 13%) Levels of Thinking and Reasoning (Higher Order = 87%)

1.Knowing

2.Organizing

3.Applying

4.Analyzing

5.Generating

6.Integrating

7.Evaluating


6.02 2.03 6.01, 6.03

9.04

7.01


1.01, 2.05

3.03

4.01 3.01 1.02, 2.02

3.02, 3.04

4.03, 5.04

7.04, 8.01

8.02, 9.02

9.03, 10.02

10.03, 11.01

11.04, 11.05

10.01, 10.04 12.01 1.03, 2.04

2.06, 3.05

4.02, 4.04

5.03, 7.03

8.03, 9.05

10.05, 11.02

11.03, 11.06

12.02, 12.03

12.04, 12.05

12.06


2.01, 7.02 5.02, 9.01 5.01

D.Meta-CognitiveKnowledge

Adapted from works by Robert Marzano, et al., (1988) and Anderson, Lorin W. and David R. Krathwohl, et al., (2001).

NC Social Studies 2003

Further Information:


Mr. Jerrie W. BrownNorth Carolina State UniversityCenter for Urban and Community ServicesTechnical Outreach for Public Schools1500 Blue Ridge RoadRaleigh, N. Carolina 27609

Tel: (919) 515-1125Email: [email protected]

developing essential (power) standards with rbt

Education

teaching students

help students

isoutsidethe student

getsinsidethe student

human body lorin

statement of objectives

course content

verb space