Creating Professional Development Opportunities with Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom's Taxonomy for the 21st Century

                This activity allowed us to demonstrate 21^st century approaches to education by requiring creativity, collaboration, evaluation and application.  Each person individually came up with a professional development suggestion and then we collaborated to narrow it down to three professional development ideas.  Then we had to evaluate our peers from another group and demonstrate our ability to move it up Bloom’s Taxonomy to make it a more meaningful professional development activity.  It also allowed us to reevaluate our original suggestions to our peer’s suggestion which requires us to reflect on the overall success of our individual and group effort.  I found the activity to be a good tool to promote discussion and internal self-reflection.

                I personally think the lesson would have been more effective if we had laptops to write the question so it would be easier to reword and edit.  In addition, I would have benefited with some more time to come up with creative suggestions.  Finally, it would have been a better idea to have the groups larger to promote more discussion and debate.  In turn, this would have made it more difficult to compromise and forced the group to narrow their focus; thereby making the activity more challenging.

                I enjoyed this activity but I also found it slightly frustrating when a group member wanted to get bogged down in particulars that were not pertinent or relevant.  I found myself bringing the group back to task and wondered to myself if I would be perceived as bossy; however, overall I enjoyed the activity and enjoyed getting to know peers in my class on a deeper level. 

                In this activity, I got to apply Bloom’s new taxonomy in a “practical” use.  In addition, I did not realize that I would be solely in charge of planning professional development activities as an administrator.  I now realize it is not as easy as it looks.  I also am considering one of my suggestions as a viable option for me as a future administrator.  I think it would be a create idea to create an online professional development community for the teachers.  I will be starting my internship in the Spring and this is something I may be able to implement at my current place of employment.