Bloom's Taxonomy... Israeli Style

One of my favorite - and most challenging - responsibilities is to arrange, create, and develop the professional development in my school. This past session, we talked about Bloom's Taxonomy..... in Hebrew (obviously). I do not believe that Bloom's is the first and last word in education. But I do believe it is a nice starting point for discussions about good education.

In a nutshell, his categories are:

1. ידע (Knowledge)
2. הבנה (Comprehension)
3. יישום (Application)
4. אנליזה (Analysis)
5. סינתזה (Synthesis)
6. הערכה (Evaluation)

(If you're interested, two nice websites in Hebrew - here and here - summarize the concepts nicely. For a review in English, try here, here or here.)

I noticed two interesting things in this session (which went very well):

First, with all the talk of inferior teachers in Israel, every teacher on our staff had heard of the taxonomy and many had even taken a course or two where it was utilized. It may be the specific population of teachers with which I work, but all I know is what I see. And what I saw was interested, self-reflective teachers who enjoyed thinking about their practice.

You don't hear that that often about teachers in Israel.

Second, there was a feeling among the faculty that his taxonomy was not complete when speaking about limudei kodesh. Many teachers felt that the "la'asok" was missing: we want our students to connect with the Torah, la'asok b'divrei Torah, to "acquire" the Torah and make it their own. Others suggested that it was already included in "Evaluation", the highest in the taxonomy, which requires the students to assess, decide, and judge the material.

I do not know who is correct. But I did love the thoughtful question about chinuch that ensued.

You don't hear that that often about teachers in Israel.