Bloom, Gardner, Gliffy & Reflection

One of the foundations of higher education is the importance of reflection. John Dewey defined reflective thought as the “active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in light of the grounds that supports it, and the further conclusions to which it tends” (p. 6, How We Think). As reflective practitioners, our classes should be well designed – not only informed by our expertise in our subject matter but also by a thoughtful consideration of  the organization and delivery of those methods.

I developed the concept map shown on the right to use in a presentation to illustrate how me might consider Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives, Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, and innovative web sites, “Web 2.0,” while designing online courses. It’s a couple of years old now and there are many more web sites available.

The point of my presentation was not that technology is the answer, but that we should reflect as we prepare and design our online courses. Surely every lesson of every course cannot address every multiple intelligence at all levels of cognition. As Gardner puts it in Can Technology Exploit Our Many Ways of Knowing, “technologies ought to be mobilized for better instruction” (p. 33). And as Gardner continues, “Before embracing any new technology, we need to declare our educational goals and demonstrate how a particular technology can help us to achieve them” (p.34).

One thorny issue in distance education is whether the medium allows adequate time and encourages thoughtful reflection of the course content by students.  As shown in this diagram, one method is to require the student to engage in some sort of meta-cognitive activity. Concept maps are an ideal method for having the student organize their thoughts either independently or collaboratively in groups.  Gliffy is just one of such tools.

Gliffy is extremely transparent, requiring little if any explanation or technical support. Using a drag-and-drop interface, students may assemble a hierarchical or free form concept map, flow chart, or a number of other diagram types. To work in groups, the first user clicks on the “share” button and types in the email addresses of group members. A complete revision history is available by participant so that everyone (read instructor) can view the contributions of members of the team.  The end product may be saved as an image file or as a file compatible with Microsoft Visio.

The drawing may be made public as well. Here is the link to the public view of the present drawing: http://www.gliffy.com/publish/1481063/.