Developing Rigorous Lesson Plans (Using Bloom's Cognitive Process Dimension)

by John R. Walkup, Ph.D.

This is the fourth installment of a series of blog articles on using Cognitive Rigor to drive lesson planning. To demonstrate how the choice of standard has little to do with the rigor of instruction, I have chosen an art education standard from Oklahoma's older PASS standards:

High School Art Standard: Develop and apply skills and techniques using a variety of art media, and processes in making two- and three-dimensional works of art. [This standard lists such media as drawing (e.g., sketching) and sculpture (e.g., carving).]

Depth of Knowledge

In Part I, we decided to teach the standard at the DOK-4 level of Depth of Knowledge. For students to provide evidence of rigorous instruction, we chose a culminating activity that combined the cross-disciplinary fields of art education, business technical writing, and business law:

You are a commercial sculptor. Your local police department has issued a Request for Proposals for a bronze sculpture dedicated to one of its fallen officers. Write a proposal containing a project design (sketch), an explanation of the design, why your design should be chosen, and the terms of agreement.

Knowledge Dimension of Bloom's Taxonomy

We have also used an expanded version of the Knowledge Dimension of Bloom's Taxonomy to establish the content for the lesson (Part II) and outlined strategies for overcoming student subskill problems (Part III).

For this sample lesson, we identified some of the lesson content:

1. Factual knowledge — know the definition and elements/structure of a Request for Proposal
2. Conceptual knowledge — understand the principles of design; understand the purpose of a Request for Proposal
3. Procedural knowledge — know the procedure for sculpting; know how to apply the principles of design to a sculpture; know how to write a proposal
4. Metacognitive knowledge — assess one’s own design for quality and impact; assess one's own approach to designing a sculpture; assess one's own proposal for persuasive capability
5. Relevance knowledge — know that the lesson can help prepare students for a career in art; appreciate how a sculpture can fill a need; understand the impact of terms of agreement
6. Communicative knowledge — explain a design in writing; work with others (classmates) in developing  design; query local business leaders on what needs to be included in a Terms of Agreement; moving more words (e.g., "terms of agreement," 'request for proposal," "contour," "balance") into one's own working vocabulary.
7. Deep knowledge — understand sculpture and its impact on viewers; understand the client's needs and how to consider those needs into artistic design

We now turn our attention to Step 4 in creating the lesson plan, shown in the accompanying flow chart. We will now use the Cognitive Process Dimension of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy to select instructional strategies for teaching the content.

Cognitive Process Dimension

In a recent blog article, I discussed how the Cognitive Process Dimension of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy can help teachers select instructional methods for delivering content in the classroom: In the article, I stated the following:

Each instructional method works well with some elements of the Cognitive Process Dimension and not others. For example, I would not use Socratic seminars to teach at the understand-level. Even though in principle the Socratic seminar can teach students to understand content, the overhead and time involved in carrying out the seminars make it inefficient for this purpose. On the other hand, Socratic seminars are often ideal for teaching students at the analyze and evaluate levels.

I also posted a chart that relates some of the more prominent instructional methods with the Bloom's Taxonomy levels. (I also posted a warning that this chart will likely generate much disagreement.)

In this article, I will demonstrate the use of the Cognitive Process Dimension for our sample lesson plan.

Instructional Methods

What do students need to remember from this lesson? One place to look is the factual knowledge component of the Knowledge Dimension. In our example, students need to remember the structure of a Request for Proposal. According to our chart, direct instruction recitation is a viable method for teaching students to remember. We can improve on the method using a graphic organizer.

Referring to the content in the Knowledge Dimension, we see that the understand-level of Bloom's Taxonomy will appear prominently in Item 2 (conceptual knowledge). Direct instruction is particularly effective for teaching content related to the understand level. Therefore, we can explain to students, using examples and non-examples and a host of cognitive strategies, the definition, elements, and structure of an RFP and its purpose. We can also explain the principles of design, which will also require numerous examples and non-examples.

Procedural knowledge (Item 3) often aligns to the apply level of Bloom's Taxonomy, and this lesson is no exception. However, direct instruction by itself will likely struggle to teach the abstract procedures related to sculpting. To augment direct instruction, we could choose a think-aloud, which would have the instructor modeling his or her sculpting (or perhaps sketching) while voicing out loud her thought processes as she incorporates principles of design in her work.

The Bloom's Taxonomy level associated with learning metacognitive knowledge (Item 4) is not always clear. No matter, because I can simply ask students to answer some of the "50 Questions to Promote Metacognition in Students," a reflective method of learning. (I picked this tip up from Barbara Blackburn in one of her workshop sessions.)

The relevance knowledge (Item 5) in this lesson aligns closest to the analyze level. Guided inquiry is often a practical method for teaching content related to this level and we could use it for this example lesson. Students could be set up with a guiding question "Is sculpting a worthwhile career?" and use the Internet to research answers to the question. (For more on guided inquiry and its relationship to Depth of Knowledge, see my blog article.) Simply performing the DOK-4 activity alone will teach them a great deal about the importance of commercial art and their potential involvement in it. We can also use guided inquiry for compelling students to learn how to develop a solid Terms of Agreement component of their proposal, which could involve Web surfing, querying local business owners, and so on.

Item 6 (communicative knowledge) features two aspects: Writing to communicate and group collaboration. Since our lesson features a heavy writing component, we can achieve our goal for writing to communicate. By placing students into formal groups to carry out the activity, we can also exercise communicative knowledge related to collaboration.

Finally, we have Item 7 (deep knowledge). Our culminating activity aligns to DOK-4, the highest level of Depth of Knowledge, so deep knowledge is satisfied for this lesson. We can also ask students questions designed to engage them deeper, including:

1. Describe how sculpture can impact viewers.
2. How did you incorporate the client's needs into your artistic design?

As for the subskill, I discussed how to overcome this barrier in my other blog article.

Final thoughts

The instructional methods discussed above are only samples of what a teacher can do. Some teachers may prefer to use more direct instruction, whereas others may focus on more progressive techniques. The key is to recognize that no single instructional method will satisfy all the needs of a teacher.

As such, using the CPI approach to lesson planning
opens up opportunities for teachers to acquire their own training. Those teachers who are weak in using the Socratic method may want to seek professional development in that area. Others may want to Twitter chat for tips on how to pull off think-alouds.

In my next installment, I will summarize the overall lesson and provide a vignette on how this lesson could play out in a typical classroom setting.

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Seeking training at your school or district centered on Cognitive Rigor or Depth of Knowledge?  Call me at (559) 903-4014 or email me at jwalkup@standardsco.com. 

We will discuss ways in which I can help your teachers boost student engagement and deep thinking in their classrooms. I offer workshops, follow-up classroom observation/coaching, and curriculum analysis to anywhere in the country (and even internationally).

Follow me on Twitter at @jwalkup.