Biology in Bloom: Implementing Bloom's Taxonomy to Enhance Student Learning in Biology

Abstract

We developed the Blooming Biology Tool (BBT), an assessment tool based on Bloom's Taxonomy, to assist science faculty in better aligning their assessments with their teaching activities and to help students enhance their study skills and metacognition. The work presented here shows how assessment tools, such as the BBT, can be used to guide and enhance teaching and student learning in a discipline-specific manner in postsecondary education. The BBT was first designed and extensively tested for a study in which we ranked almost 600 science questions from college life science exams and standardized tests. The BBT was then implemented in three different collegiate settings. Implementation of the BBT helped us to adjust our teaching to better enhance our students' current mastery of the material, design questions at higher cognitive skills levels, and assist students in studying for college-level exams and in writing study questions at higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. From this work we also created a suite of complementary tools that can assist biology faculty in creating classroom materials and exams at the appropriate level of Bloom's Taxonomy and students to successfully develop and answer questions that require higher-order cognitive skills.

A participatory learning approach to biochemistry using student authored and evaluated multiple‐choice questions

“…PeerWise was the first experience that the students had of writing MCQs. Most students are unfamiliar with the revised Bloom's hierarchy, and it is not easy to write MCQs that address the higher levels of thinking even for instructors [29][30][31]. The students also tend to experience questions targeting low-level cognitive skills in formal examinations.…”

“…Students can be guided to use Bloom's hierarchy in both writing and evaluating questions [23,30], but we felt that this would be too prescriptive and unnecessarily complicate the activity, possibly resulting in reduced participation. Nevertheless, this is something that may be useful to explore in a second semester biochemistry course, or other biomedical subject, with students who have previously used PeerWise.…”

Bridging the gap: on easing the transition from Arab secondary to Western third level learning

“…Therefore, further investigation is needed into specific curriculum objectives and learning outcomes because, even though the preliminary analysis has suggested that the general objectives of the Tawjihiya education program and the RCSI learning objectives seem to be very similar, the results of our study tend to suggest the opposite (investigation in progress). An investigation of the assessment methods would be worthwhile to assess to what extent the students are required to think at higher cognitive levels (Crowe, 2008). In order to solve the controversies about the writing skills, an additional study of the literacy secondary syllabus and writing for specific purposes would be essential.…”

“…They should become engaged in content-based instruction (CBI) (James, 2006) which involves the integration of curriculum material and academic skills required to maintain sustainable development and life-long learning. The problem of academic underachievement seems to be particularly acute among science students who engage in 'discipline -specific' education (Crowe et al, 2008) to pursue their professional goals without realizing how challenging third-level learning might be. Research has shown that traditional teaching, which students receive in secondary schools, does not comply with university teaching and therefore, does not improve meaningful understanding of scientific concepts taught at a university ( Klein, 2006;Rivard, 2000, Ruiz-Primo, 2002.…”

“…Assessment at both institutions involves theoretical and practical examinations. This implies that such 'high-cognitive skills' (Crowe et al 2008) as critical thinking and problem solving should have been extensively practised at school in order to ensure students' success in higher education. However, relevant literature on Arab mainstream education suggests that pedagogical practices at school encourage submission, obedience, subordination and compliance rather than critical thinking and, in many cases, knowledge is evaluated by examinations that test memorization and factual recall (AHDR, 2003;UNR, 2007).…”