What I do know is that the art of having students reflect on the amount of "knowing" present in their own or someone else's product is a tricky one, an art that takes a lot of time, practice, and patience. It often results in a metacognitive mess that leaves stains all over the place. I frequently find myself agonizing over when the right time is to practice this art during the learning process, trying to find that perfect time in the learning to do it where students will finally have that one pure moment of evaluative epiphany, falling down on their knees and proclaiming, "NOW I SEE WHAT LEARNING REALLY IS AND HOW I CAN GET BETTER! THANKS TO MRS. E I CAN THINK CLEARLY NOW AND GO FORTH AND REGURGITATE INFORMATION NO MORE!"
(A science teacher with no life can dream, can't she?)
I do know that I probably will not see the fruits of my Bloom's taxonomy labors during this school year, mainly since these types of thinking skills are cultivated and refined over many years. There is no one magical lesson that will turn your students into little Einsteins in one fell swoop (boy, did I used to think this, and I know a lot of other teachers starting out believe this, too). But this is not going to stop me from trying. And try I did this week, by asking the question below in their daily journal:
On your final progress check for Photosynthesis and Cell Respiration, one of your short answer questions was this:
Summarize, at a level 4, what occurs in the two stages of photosynthesis, being sure to show (using specific examples) how the two stages of photosynthesis are connected. (2b, 1-4)
Study the two answers given below. Read them both, looking for what level of understanding each displays. In the answer to this journal, tell me what level you would score each answer at (from 0-4), and explain why--USING THE CRITERIA for each level listed in the front of the room. You can also find the criteria here.
Answer #1:
In photosynthesis the light reactions take in the sun's energy and makes ATP and NADPH which gives the calvin cycle energy to make the glucose that is used to fuel the cell after being broken down in the mitochondria. The Calvin Cycle also gives of ADP and NADH back to the light reactions to be given the energy again.
Answer #2:
When the two stages of photosynthesis; Light reactions and Calvin Cycle occur, they both make ATP and then what is not used within the two cycles those unfinished chemicals/molecules go through the process time and time after until the molecules/chemicals are used, in the making of a product. The Calvin cycle takes the molecules that are needed to make the product and places them in their correct destination with each other to make ATP and the corredct produt of a molecule.
(The answers were copied without alteration from their progress check they took in Juno. I also chose the answers without seeing what student wrote them.)
Only one class period all day recognized the fact that the second answer should probably be rated at 1 or 1.5 on my scoring scale, and the first answer should be rated higher than the second one. When I asked them why they rated the second answer so much higher than the first (which the majority of them did), this is what they told me:
There were more details given in answer number 2 because it was longer than answer number one. They were looking at the amount of "stuff" in each answer, not the quality of the "stuff." They think more "stuff" is better. Even when the "stuff" reveals surface-level understanding.
We then had a mini-lesson on how to examine an answer for quality of thought and understanding, using answer number two above as our example. I basically did a think-aloud of my thought process when reading it, showing students how to question while reading the answer (Do both stages really make ATP? What does that second sentence mean? What is the product of photosynthesis? What molecules does the Calvin cycle take?) to find the "holes" in the learning. Once the "holes" have been found, they can then use the criteria to rate and evaluate the understanding and knowing.
I tell my students that all learning starts with questions. That day I told them that determining if you or someone else has learned something starts with questions, too.
I am struck by the fact that a skill I take for granted is something that needs to be explicitly taught and practiced by my students, but I guess I am too far removed in time from when I learned this skill to remember how tough it was to learn in the first place. That may be why some might think that getting students to the top of Bloom's taxonomy requires a teacher to formulate elaborate activities and tough questions and gouge deep, lasting claw marks along the sides of Bloom's pyramid. I don't think this is the case.
I think the first step in getting students to be able to evaluate is as simple as teaching them to ask the right questions.