Assessment
How would you use the Bloom's Taxonomy & Social Media Tools steps to evaluate your students' work in a social networking site?
It is important for any instructor to remember that they are teaching people frist, topic second. If you do not connect with he student and understand their style of learning the topic will not be an educational experience that will be retained.The rubrics are a great way to connect and monitor student progress and retainment.
The distance between teaching people first and the topic second is barely noticible. To proceed the topic is what the students needs to achieve the appropiate knowledge to continue. Emotions is a double-edge sward in this environment. Like in a classroom the emotions between a student, a teacher , and the situation can cause us to alter our principles as educators to that of a social worker. Not to say that a social worker's emotional habits are tilted but they can be misunderstood. Let us not forget the topic is important to the students overall understanding of the subject matter and that is our true calling.
Doni,
You make such a great point. Relationships facilitate learning. Rubrics help with the relationship and the communication.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Arthur,
Good point! I think it is important to discuss the topic and bring everyone in the discussion. I don't think social worker is meant for every class and it is important to keep everyone on topic.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Connecting with the students thoughts, personal background, milestones and acknowledge who they are primarily with generate a better learning environment for both parties. Once that established...introduce the topic for a more clean learning and conversing.
Guerda,
You make such an important point. Students need to feel like "people" online not just a name.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
I would use it to determine their knowledge and understanding of the topic.
Belinda,
Couldn't you also determine evaluation? I think you could push the level quite high on Bloom's
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
The blooms taxonomy would help determine whether the social networking information is providing general knowledge, discussion, analysis or evaluation of the subject matter. It helps us gauge the level of discuss and how to frame follow-up questions.
Austin,
You are right. I think you make a great point about how to follow up after using this type of assessment.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Bloom's Taxonomy can be used to develop the objectives for the use of social media. In this way students have a clear understanding as to why social media is being used and how they can effectively use this tool as a way to demonstrate their knowledge. In an era when social media is often used for silly or trivial information by students, Bloom's places a structure around the social media tool thereby making it effective in a learning environment. Students have developed so many bad habits in the use of social media that 'Bloomicizing' the use of social media sets the tone as being more serious and professional/formal, encouraging students to be more thoughtful in their posts then they might be in their personal social media communications. It also establishes a benchmark on which assessment can be based.
Sharon,
I am going to use your term Bloomicize! You are right; it provides the framework for molding the professional development they need.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
In order to truly assess the student’s understanding and mastery of the material we would need to find a way to objectively measure this. Using higher learning tools and rubrics will allow us to definitively assess if the criteria has been met.
When using social media tools there needs to be specific guidelines established. They need to understand that using these tools is not going to be the same as posting a status update on Facebook or Twitter. Applying Bloom’s principles will help increase the level of professionalism and steer the use of these tools for an academic purpose versus a social purpose.
Michelle,
What a great post! You are so right. You have to have expectations. You don't want to just use this assessment tool just to be different. You want it to measure something.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Dr. Wilkinson,
It is hard to imagine without actually evaluating work, but I can imagine student interactions on sites could be evaluated for: Knowledge (information brought to posts), Comprehension (exhibits deep understanding of subject matter), Application (applying tools of the field to solve problems), Analysis (objective and sometimes subjective analysis of results, Synthesis( bringing knowledge from various disciplines to bear on problem), and finally Evaluation (a final assessment of the best solution to a problem given tools available).
Michelle - "They need to understand that using these tools is not going to be the same as posting a status update on Facebook or Twitter" This is what I worry about in using social media as part of the classroom. Students bring a history of using those sites to the class and now we will ask them to use them differently than they (and we) likely do in our social lives.
I absolutely agree Steve! It can be difficult for many students to “unlearn†how they have utilized social media in the past and use it in a more professional capacity.
Thank you Dr. Wilkinson! Unfortunately, I have seen these and many other tools used in online classes that are truly there so they are “different.†Sometimes too much technology can have the opposite effect. I feel any “tools†we use in the classroom should be there to enhance learning. If it is causing more harm than good it should be removed. Again, that is just my opinion.
Steve,
What a great post. Would you look at vocabulary in the discipline. I think that would be interesting.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
