The curriculum for Grades 4+ uses Constructivism and Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy to help students own their own learning by asking them to reflect on the principles and teach others. Students have been asked to research Bloom’s taxonomy to inform their choice of teaching activity.

Constructivism

What is constructivism? Constructivism is a teaching method that recognizes that learners bring their whole selves to the learning environment, that they are capable of learning better with the teacher acting as facilitator (teaching how to learn) rather than dispenser of learning.

Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy

What is Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy? The taxonomy was originally created to guide teachers in designing instruction so that it reached higher order critical thinking in the students.

In 2001, it was revised to provide clearer goals for instruction. The following graphic illustrates the new taxonomy. At each of the levels, verbs are listed that could be used for learning objectives.

Curriculum Design

Each student has been asked to choose one of the 8 UU principles to design a learning activity for all of us to engage in. Designing the learning activity is at the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy – Create.

At this level, the students will combine everything they learned as part of their research to create an original work or formulate their solution to a problem. The writing prompts are intended to guide their research.

The three associated cognitive processes are:

• Generating involves coming up with alternative hypotheses based on criteria. An example might be devising multiple solutions for a social problem.
• Planning is about coming up with a procedure for completing a task (e.g., preparing an outline of an article).
• Producing means inventing a product (e.g., writing a short story).

Writing Prompts

While they are researching their principle, we are discussing one or two of the principles each week by writing the answers to the questions in the principle writing prompts. The writing prompts include the original Bloom’s level at the end of the prompt.

IMPORTANT: Students are expected to get primary guidance and values instruction from their parents.

Weekly Activities

Every week, the students will give an update on their research and ask for guidance. Depending on the time we have left before they travel to OWL, we may create art, watch a video, play a game or do some other exercise related to the principles of the week.