May 20, 2025 • 35 mins
Stephanie and Zac unpack the of one of the most famous pyramids in education (Bloom's taxonomy) and attempt to draw a line from its post-WWII origins to the requirement of teachers writing their objectives on the board.
For the second half of the show, researcher Katherine McEldoon joins to offer an alternative way to figure out if students' (and adults') brains are doing the work we hope they are during learning.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Stephanie Melville.
SPEAKER_00 (00:16):
And I'm Zach Chase.
SPEAKER_01 (00:17):
And this is Academic Distinctions, a podcast where we
try to make sense of Americaneducation.
SPEAKER_00 (00:24):
You might not be like us.
SPEAKER_01 (00:27):
You might not stalk the teaching and education
Reddit boards.
SPEAKER_00 (00:30):
You might not notice there is a frequent complaint
among teachers.
SPEAKER_01 (00:34):
Why do I have to put my objectives on the board?
Or...
Does it really help to put myobjectives on the board?
SPEAKER_00 (00:42):
Well, in today's episode, we're going to depart
from our usual examination andmaking sense of the news in
education.
SPEAKER_01 (00:49):
Instead, we're going to look at a very common
practice.
SPEAKER_00 (00:53):
Not just a practice, but a requirement.
SPEAKER_01 (00:55):
Okay.
A requirement of modernteachers, writing their
objectives on the board.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01):
If you've taught in any public classroom in the last
three decades or so, you wereprobably told by a coach, a
principal, an AP, or aconsultant, you need to put your
objective on the board.
SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
They usually start something like, students will be
able to, and then end either insome version of an academic
standard or a description of thework to be done in class that
day.
SPEAKER_00 (01:24):
I even had a colleague who had the same
objective on the board for weeksat a time.
SPEAKER_01 (01:30):
And at its height, this was something teachers
would get dinged on in theirregular evaluations.
SPEAKER_00 (01:35):
The lesson was great, but I didn't see the
objective on the board.
At
SPEAKER_01 (01:40):
some point, objectives on the board were
almost considered necessary orequivalent to students actually
learning.
SPEAKER_00 (01:48):
This had its origins in research.
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
Shh, no spoilers.
SPEAKER_00 (01:52):
Okay.
UNKNOWN (01:53):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (01:53):
Our hypothesis is this practice has its roots all
the way back to just about theend of World War II, and it
starts with a guy named BenjaminBloom.
SPEAKER_00 (02:02):
Now, Benjamin Bloom was an educational psychologist,
and he and some colleaguesstarted in the late 1940s trying
to solve a problem we'll getinto in a second.
But first, one piece ofhousekeeping.
If you have been a classroomteacher sometime in the last 40
years or so, and you hear thewords Bloom's Taxonomy...
(02:23):
you just got a picture in yourhead.
That picture is probably atriangle.
Many people might call it apyramid, but it is a triangle.
SPEAKER_01 (02:31):
And depending on when you first saw this
triangle, it might look a littlebit different.
SPEAKER_00 (02:38):
At the bottom is either the word knowledge or
remembering.
And
SPEAKER_01 (02:42):
at the top is either the word evaluation or create.
SPEAKER_00 (02:46):
And if someone asks you to think about,
quote-unquote, higher orderthinking skills, your memory
tries to picture the other wordsat the top of the triangle.
SPEAKER_01 (02:56):
For lower order thinking skills, you try to
picture the bottom.
SPEAKER_00 (03:01):
This is what most people picture when they picture
Bloom's taxonomy.
SPEAKER_01 (03:06):
But here's the thing.
When Bloom and his friendspublished their taxonomy, it
didn't include a triangle.
SPEAKER_00 (03:13):
Or a pyramid.
SPEAKER_01 (03:14):
In fact, his contemporaries have said that
this was likely created bysomeone who needed to include
the taxonomy in a PowerPointpresentation during a
professional development orsomething and likely borrowed
from another familiareducational triangle, Maslow's
hierarchy of needs.
SPEAKER_00 (03:30):
But that is another episode.
SPEAKER_01 (03:33):
This is just the first of many misunderstandings
and misappropriations of Bloom'staxonomy throughout the history
of his existence.
SPEAKER_00 (03:40):
And we would argue that misunderstanding is really
important because the history oflearning and American schools is
littered with people taking anidea and appropriating it to do
something for which it was neverintended and for which they have
no evidence it will work to helpkids.
SPEAKER_01 (03:59):
Think Ariel and her dinglehopper.
SPEAKER_00 (04:01):
If you know, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (04:04):
So we've got Benjamin and we've got his knot
triangle.
Now let's dive into the historyof Bloom's taxonomy and how we
think it ends with ourobjectives on the board.
SPEAKER_00 (04:13):
Oh, one more thing.
One of our favorite quotes inresearching this episode comes
from Benjamin Bloom, who saidthe taxonomy is one of the most
frequently cited books ineducation that no one has ever
read.
SPEAKER_01 (04:27):
But don't worry, we read it.
SPEAKER_00 (04:28):
Our objective for the day?
SPEAKER_01 (04:31):
Listeners will be able to make sense of how
American education arrived atwriting objectives on the board.
SPEAKER_00 (04:45):
Let's get started in the spirit of Sophia Petrillo.
Picture it.
Boston, 1948.
At the annual meeting of theAmerican Psychological
Association, a bunch of collegeexaminers.
Now, these are guys...
probably mostly guys, maybe somewomen, whose job it is to
oversee and implement theend-of-term examinations for
(05:09):
colleges across the country.
And one of the things theynoticed was the exams maybe
asked kids or students to do thesame things using different
language.
It was a problem because theycouldn't talk about what was
expected in a Bio 101 class,let's say in Boston, and a Bio
101 class in Chicago.
(05:30):
So there was a discussion.
It maybe sounded something like,we ought to have a theoretical
framework which could be used tofacilitate communication among
examiners or something likethat.
SPEAKER_01 (05:42):
And then 1949 to 1953, a group of folks started
to get together annually afterthat meeting in 1948.
They met at differentuniversities each year and
started to build that frameworkby looking at existing
objectives and trying toclassify them.
34 folks are listed ascontributing to this work across
(06:03):
the years.
SPEAKER_00 (06:05):
In 1954, publishers printed 1,000 draft copies to be
sent to a large group of collegeand secondary school teachers,
administrators, curriculumdirectors, and educational
research specialists for theircomments and feedback.
SPEAKER_01 (06:21):
In 1956, it was finally published as Taxonomy of
Educational Objectives, TheClassification of Educational
Goals.
SPEAKER_00 (06:29):
What a snappy title.
SPEAKER_01 (06:30):
Right, right.
According to one of Bloom'sstudents, Lauren Anderson, it
was known within the educationalexaminer crowd, but didn't
really take off until...
SPEAKER_00 (06:41):
Well, with a title like that, you would think it
would have taken off right away.
Fast forward to 1965, Congresspasses the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act,bringing unprecedented federal
funding to support of publiceducation, what President
Johnson called the passport outof poverty.
Folks wanted to know if thefunds were doing anything, and
(07:02):
they looked to a guy named RalphTyler's Planning, Programming,
and Budget System, or PPBS,which was built on the idea of
setting an objective andmeasuring the achievement of the
outcome.
Shouldn't be earth-shattering tothose of you who have ever taken
a test on things you weresupposed to learn, but this
wasn't really a system built foreducation.
So for the language they needed,they turned to what had become
(07:25):
known as Bloom's Taxonomy,putting the taxonomy...
Now,
SPEAKER_01 (07:32):
keep this in mind.
In 1960, only one state had astatewide standardized exam.
SPEAKER_00 (07:39):
Now we fast forward.
1984.
At a meeting of the ASCD, agroup about staff development
and learning for teachers, 28other organizations are also
represented.
And they note the dominance ofBloom's taxonomy and the
misalignment, right?
Remember, Bloom and hiscolleagues were just trying to
describe what was happening.
(08:00):
And all of a sudden, thistaxonomy was used to help
educators figure out how towrite what they were trying to
do.
They said, this is misaligned,and there ought to be an update.
But they never do.
SPEAKER_01 (08:12):
In 1985, now 32 states have standardized tests.
SPEAKER_00 (08:16):
And Bloom's taxonomy is more important than ever in
helping to define what studentsshould know and writing learning
objectives.
In 1994, Lauren Anderson, theformer student of Bloom's, and
Lauren Sosniak edit a 40-yearretrospective on the impact of
the taxonomy.
SPEAKER_01 (08:35):
In 1997, Norman Webb develops his depth of knowledge
or DOK framework.
that breaks things students areasked to do into four different
buckets of rigor or complexity.
As students progress through theDOK levels, they should
encounter tasks that requirethem to think, quote, harder
(08:58):
about what they need to do tosucceed.
Not only do we get a brand newframework, but this sets off a
frustrating conflation of weband bloom that lasts to this
day.
SPEAKER_00 (09:10):
Now we should point out, Webb's framework wasn't the
only competing framework.
In fact, when ESEA was passed in65, Bloom's was highlighted, and
then everybody flocked to try toget the best framework to get
the money to help set up all ofthese exams.
In 2001, Anderson and David R.
(09:30):
Crathwell, one of the originaltaxonomy contributors, edit A
Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching,and Assessing, a revision of
Bloom's Taxonomy of EducationalObjectives.
This revised taxonomy moves thedomains from nouns like
knowledge to verbs like rememberand attempts to expand on the
(09:51):
complex kinds of knowledge inthe world.
They also add create in place ofevaluation to shift toward the
way educators have been using itrather than what it was
originally built to do.
Students bringing something intothe world rather than reacting
to what was there.
This was an attempt to createsomething that actually lined up
(10:12):
to how the taxonomy had beenused and develop it from the
ground up so that teachers wereusing it in the right way.
Also in 2001, Robert Marzano andJohn Kendall publish The New
Taxonomy of EducationalObjectives, a very similar
framework to Bloom's.
There's no pyramid in this oneeither, but some really nice 3D
(10:32):
work to deepen the thinking onwhat is knowledge.
SPEAKER_01 (10:36):
Again, still.
In 2001, Marzano, DeborahPickering, and Jane Pollock
publish Classroom InstructionThat Works, Research-Based
Strategies for IncreasingStudent Achievement.
Number eight on that list?
SPEAKER_04 (10:50):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:50):
Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback, funded
at least in part by the U.S.
Department of Education.
SPEAKER_00 (10:58):
So let's recap.
We've got multiple frameworks.
We've got a federal statute thatsays we need to test whether or
not students are learning whatthey're doing.
And we've got a lot of peoplesaying students need to be doing
more complex things.
In 2002, Congress passes thebipartisan supported No Child
Left Behind Act into law.
(11:20):
For the first time, federalfunding is based off of how
students are achieving andgrowing.
And it starts to require thetesting and grouping of
subgroups of students tounderstand if there are
achievement gaps acrossdifferent demographics of folks.
SPEAKER_01 (11:34):
In 2007...
Marzano and Kendall release asecond edition, and yet we still
stick to Bloom's originalpyramid.
SPEAKER_00 (11:43):
In 2008, not related on its face to education,
there's a global housing marketcrash.
Why is that important?
Because the majority of schoolfunding across the country comes
from property taxes.
And if people can't pay fortheir property taxes, schools
face budget shortfalls.
(12:04):
But don't worry, the federalgovernment has a plan.
SPEAKER_01 (12:07):
In 2009, Race to the Top is announced.
It's a nearly$4.5 billioncompetitive grant program
initiated by the U.S.
Department of Education, andit's aimed at encouraging and
rewarding states forimplementing significant reforms
in K-12 education.
The initiative sought to improveteaching and learning by
providing incentives for statesto adopt innovative educational
(12:29):
policies and practices.
It marked a historic moment inAmerican education, aiming to
spur systemic reform and enhancestudent outcomes across the
nation.
SPEAKER_00 (12:40):
And what kind of standards was it hoping states
would adopt?
Well, of course, standards thatfocused on higher order thinking
skills.
Everybody pictured the triangleand got to work.
And then in 2012, according toGoogle's Ngram, objective on the
board peaks.
(13:00):
as occurring in texts acrosspublication.
SPEAKER_01 (13:03):
In 2013, Anderson and Crathwell release an update
attempting to add clarity to theoriginal work and move the field
away from the misuse of Bloom'soriginal work, second edition
style.
Still, Bloom's pyramid persists.
SPEAKER_00 (13:18):
But at least people start to picture it with create
at the top and not justevaluate.
In 2015, two exams are rulingexams.
PARC Also in 2015, the EveryStudent
SPEAKER_01 (13:46):
Succeeds Act, ESSA, replaces No Child Left Behind.
requiring every state to measureperformance in reading, math,
and science, and requiring everystate to develop an easily
understandable state report cardthat is available online and
provides parents and taxpayersimportant information on test
(14:09):
performance in those subjects.
SPEAKER_00 (14:12):
And that brings us to this year, 2025.
76 years after the advent ofBloom's, the newest classroom
instruction that works isedition is out, citing setting
goals with students as apowerful practice, moving away
from just making sure there's anobjective.
(14:35):
This takes us back to some ofthe roots of Bloom's, helping
students and educators thinkabout what the goals of learning
might be.
So that little pyramid, or atleast the ideas behind it, have
been around for three quartersof a century, and only now Are
we getting back to some of theintended roots and uses of it?
(14:59):
So Stephanie, what have welearned on this chronological
history of a taxonomy?
SPEAKER_01 (15:05):
Follow the money.
SPEAKER_00 (15:06):
What?
SPEAKER_01 (15:07):
Follow the money.
Follow the money and see whereit goes.
It just kind of feels like assoon as there was money thrown
behind a particular initiative,everybody was clamoring to get
it, get their hands on it.
SPEAKER_00 (15:19):
Without ESEA and...
federal funding in publiceducation, I'm wondering if
Bloom's taxonomy would ever havemade it into the larger
educational mindset.
SPEAKER_01 (15:31):
It also just reminds me of the fact that, you know,
when I was in my teaching daysand in my district leadership
days, everybody's looking for asilver bullet.
Everything in education is tiedto how can we find a reliable
and fingers crossed that it'seasy way to improve student
(15:52):
achievement and do it quickly.
And gosh, you know, if there's apyramid
SPEAKER_00 (15:57):
triangle,
SPEAKER_01 (15:59):
sorry, triangle.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Uh, there's just, there's gottabe a way to point to the fact
that, uh, these, these things,these verbs at the top are going
to be the ones that are the bestat granting students,
SPEAKER_00 (16:17):
uh, The other interesting thing sort of
related to that is that as whilethe taxonomy was not meant to be
used in the way that it came tobe used, a number of people have
published a lot of differentresources to try to correct that
misappropriation.
And it just hasn't taken off,right?
(16:38):
People still picture thattriangle.
People still picture thatprogression.
So you never really get a secondchance to make a first
impression.
It's true.
The last thing I would say, anda key takeaway here of thinking
through this history, and Ithink it's important for all of
the ideas we discuss on thisshow.
If we want to move complex ideasinto educators practice, into
(17:00):
learning, into anybody's way ofdoing things, we need to give
them time and space tounderstand those ideas deeply.
We can bring the mandate quicklywith money, but we can't shift
practice.
We can't shift what people aredoing to help people learn as
quickly unless they get time tofigure out why they actually are
doing the thing, which takes usback to Reddit and every teacher
(17:21):
that says, why do I have to do
SPEAKER_01 (17:23):
this?
For me, that time componentreally hits home, Zach.
When we talked at the beginningwhere we said we're talking
about just about the end ofWorld War II, 76 years ago,
you're saying, and how long hasthis persisted?
But when we think about justmodern education and how
different or not different it isfrom education 100 years ago.
(17:48):
I mean, we're still teaching thesame traditional algebra,
geometry, algebra two sequencethat we were teaching.
Who we're teaching might change,but
SPEAKER_00 (17:56):
what we're teaching- It's a snuggly blanket of
comfortable math.
SPEAKER_01 (18:00):
Yeah, right.
No, the world hasn't changed, somath hasn't changed, right?
SPEAKER_00 (18:06):
So we thought- that it probably wouldn't be a good
idea to ruin objectives on theboard, to throw everything
people think about Bloom'staxonomy into the wind and then
just leave.
So stick around.
We're going to finish up with aconversation with one of our
colleagues, Catherine McKeldin,to talk about how folks might
move away from a pyramid, not apyramid, a triangle, how they
(18:32):
might move away from a trianglein setting some objectives for
learning for everyone.
We'll be right back.
Welcome back.
All right.
(18:53):
So as per usual, Stephanie and Irealized there is a limit, an
upper limit to our knowledge,and we have hit it.
We give you a good history ofBloom's taxonomy and how we
ended up, we think, withobjectives on the board.
But for a little more and todive in what that all means,
we're happy to welcome CatherineMcKeldin, a research to practice
connector, a cognitive andlearning scientist.
(19:15):
By training, Catherine hasworked across academia,
government, and industry toensure the best scientific
insights support studentlearning.
No matter the context, sheserved as a lead learning
scientist in Pearson's efficacyand learning division, where she
led the creation of Pearson'slearning design principles, a
scalable research informedtoolkit used to design and
(19:36):
evaluate digital learningproducts.
She holds a BA in Brain andCognitive Sciences from the
University of Rochester, an MSand PhD in Psychology and Human
Development from VanderbiltUniversity, and completed a
post-doctoral fellowship atArizona State University where
she scaled up the ICAP frameworkacross area middle and high
(19:56):
schools.
That last part, that ICAPframework, is why we're very
excited to have you here.
Welcome, Catherine.
SPEAKER_02 (20:04):
Yes, welcome.
Thank you so much for having me.
Pleasure to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (20:08):
ICAP, as with so many things in education, is an
acronym.
Can you talk us through it sothat folks have an understanding
of what we are going to betalking about?
SPEAKER_02 (20:18):
So at its heart, ICAP is a theory about how
students engage with learningmaterials and how different
levels of engagement lead tolearning outcomes.
We hear engagement all the timein the context of learning.
Yes, it's important, but whatdoes it mean?
Right.
That's an important question.
So the core idea here is simplebut powerful, which is the way
the students engagesignificantly impacts what they
(20:40):
learn.
And the more cognitively engagedthe learner is, the better.
Right.
And so ICAP proposes ahierarchy.
Learning generally improves asstudents now go to the ICAP
here.
Right.
Generally improves a studentmove from passive to active
learning.
then to constructive, andfinally to interactive, which is
(21:00):
where we summarize as the ICAPhypothesis.
SPEAKER_01 (21:03):
What do those different words look like?
Yeah.
Can you expand a little bitmore?
SPEAKER_02 (21:09):
Sure, absolutely.
So let's start out with passive,right?
So all of these words haveintuitive kind of meanings here,
but ICAP framework defines themin a very specific and I think
very useful way.
Right.
So passive where students arelike listening, watching,
observing or reading.
So here students are receivinginformation without any overt
(21:32):
action beyond paying attention.
So I'm listening to a lecture,but maybe I'm not taking notes
or I'm watching a video, but I'mnot doing anything additional
here.
So the primary cognitive processthat's happening here is just
receiving and storinginformation.
So moving up to the active levelhere.
Now, this is where we get a lotof crosstalk.
We hear a lot about activelearning writ large in
(21:53):
education, right?
Again, another one of these bigterms like engagement where it's
like everyone kind of says it,but there's not always a crisp
definition for it.
And ICAP defines it in a veryparticular way here.
And I'd say an importantdistinction with ICAP is that
like it separates out whatphysically and behaviorally the
(22:14):
student is doing as a means tomake inferences about what
they're thinking.
And we'll circle back to thatidea here.
(22:48):
they're not generating anythingnew or making any new inferences
or connections.
That's where we get to theconstructive level.
SPEAKER_00 (22:55):
We started with listening or reading and then
there's a like, would summer islike summarization or note
taking or even conversation.
Like what did you hear?
Talk to a peer.
People were talking about that,that kind of active level.
Like,
SPEAKER_02 (23:12):
yeah, it now, now this is where, so yes, it could.
Depends on if the learner iscoming up with new information.
SPEAKER_00 (23:22):
Okay.
So that's the, I'm hearing thatthat's the threshold of like, if
we're just repeating orrecalling to use some of the
kind of Bloom's language onthere, then I'm still, still
just inactive, but I'm not in, Ihaven't gotten to the C, which
is what Catherine?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (23:42):
Ah, the C stands for constructive.
And this is where the magichappens, right?
Now we're getting into thericher for learning level.
So passive and active are goodwhen the time comes.
They have their place, butconstructive and interactive is
where the real thinking andlearning happens.
(24:03):
So at the constructive levelhere, critically, students
generate new information orideas beyond what is presented.
Cognitive processes, right?
Blooms, call up all of yourblooms words here, like
inferring, explaining,reorganizing, elaborating.
In short, we're generating newideas here.
SPEAKER_00 (24:25):
The piece here would be if I've changed the wording
or if I've kind of synthesizedthe information to put it in my
own words, then I've trippedover from active to
constructive.
SPEAKER_02 (24:38):
Correct, because that requires in the learner's
mind them to make newconnections and inferences and
new ideas and new knowledgethere, right?
So here I am generating, I'mconstructing new knowledge at
this level, whereas at theactive level, I just had to play
with the pieces that were infront of me.
SPEAKER_01 (24:59):
That makes a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_02 (25:01):
So then what is interactive?
So interactive is two studentsbeing constructive together.
And you feel this all the timewhere you're, you know, you two,
I'm sure are interactive all thetime and you guys can come up
with ideas together that youwould never come up with on your
own because you're building onideas.
Ah, what if we did it this way?
Oh, that made me think ofsomething else.
(25:21):
And now let's, now let's dothis.
And so when two people aremutually and reciprocally
generating new informationtogether, you and you're
collaboratively elaborating,that results in the deepest
learning of all.
SPEAKER_01 (25:38):
That speaks a lot to me.
So in my time as a math coach,right, one of the things that we
would always tell our teacherswas, you know, you have to make
space for students tocollaborate.
They've got to be able to worktogether.
They've got to be able to talkabout it together.
And then one of the things thatwe always– would say during our
(25:59):
professional learning was, youknow, the people who are doing
the most talking are doing themost learning.
So if you're doing the mosttalking in your classroom, who's
doing the most learning in theclassroom, you got to give space
to your students to speakbecause if they're not talking,
then they're not doing the bulkof the learning.
SPEAKER_02 (26:15):
One, one thing that's powerful or one thing
that's useful about the ICAPframework is that it not only,
it also provides a tool where,for kind of checking yourself
and checking to see if yourinstruction is really pushing
and driving the learning thatyou want it to, right?
So you can check yourself to seelike, oh, I asked my students
(26:37):
these questions, these things,is it being as effective as I
want it to?
And you can look at their workor listen to their conversations
and listen for, are they comingup with new ideas?
right?
And that's your test on ifyou've actually gotten them up
to the constructive orinteractive level.
SPEAKER_01 (26:58):
So this is really cool.
I do have one question aboutthis framework, this model is,
you know, can these things bedone out of order?
Or does it have to be like, itseems like it's kind of almost
like a hierarchy of learningprinciples.
But, you know, one of the thingsthat I think a lot of educators
pride themselves on is theirflexibility to move from pillar
(27:19):
to pillar.
So can these things be done outof order or should they be done
in a particular order?
SPEAKER_02 (27:23):
Oh, that's great.
I'm so glad you asked thatbecause what I don't want people
to think is that this is aprescriptive order or like a
mandate.
And it certainly isn't like youwant to start passive and then
move to active and move up.
Like consider all of these modesas tools that you can use
whenever you find appropriate.
So there's no implicit orderhere.
(27:46):
And frankly, sometimes the lowerlevels or the active level only
might be completely appropriatefor your learning goals.
Not every learning objective orlearning goal requires this
interactive level here.
SPEAKER_00 (28:04):
That's an interesting piece because...
And I think this is kind of theuse and abuse of blooms and the
whole higher order thinkingpiece is that all of a sudden in
that moment, we told teachersthis isn't higher order
thinking.
So we privileged creation andkind of said, oh, remembering is
(28:27):
not super important.
Whereas, you know, the only ourability to have this
conversation right now isbecause.
Catherine has so much practicein remembering what she's
talking about, the ability toarticulate and interact right
now was built, right?
So it's not that one is betterthan the other.
In fact, it sounds like They allhave their place.
SPEAKER_02 (28:49):
Absolutely.
You need that kind offoundational set of knowledge
first before you can move intomore complex forms of thinking.
So jumping right into thecomplex stuff is not going to
get you there unless you haveyour times tables memorized, as
it were.
SPEAKER_00 (29:05):
I'm starting to see the difference between ICAP and
Bloom's taxonomy and thedifferent versions, right?
The revised and Marzano's workon Bloom's.
How do you see ICAP and Bloom'sbeing dissimilar from one
another?
SPEAKER_02 (29:21):
ICAP focuses on students' observable behaviors
and the products they generate.
So instead of categorizingthinking directly, which you
famously cannot see or havereally good evidence for, ICAP
categorizes the behavioralengagement, the actual
activities that you can see thestudents do in your classrooms.
(29:45):
Are they passively receiving,actively manipulating,
constructively generating,interactively co-generating?
Then we can infer the underlyingthinking from these behaviors
and outputs.
So this explicit link from thebehavioral activity that you can
see and have evidence for to thecognitive thinking process is
(30:05):
key in the unique value-add ofICAP.
SPEAKER_00 (30:08):
I know we're talking about students in the classroom,
but I think it is occurring tome that this is also a method
for change management within asystem or any institution.
SPEAKER_02 (30:19):
Yeah.
I mean, adult learning isfamously bad at using good
pedagogy.
UNKNOWN (30:26):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (30:28):
We
SPEAKER_00 (30:29):
expect them to do it better with children.
So that's wonderful.
SPEAKER_02 (30:32):
Well, yeah.
I mean, look, so my perspectiveas a cognitive scientist, as a
learning scientist, is thatlearning is learning is
learning, right?
Good learning is the same forgenerally everyone.
There's always exceptions.
I'm sure someone could fight meon it, but there are some
general principles about humanlearning that are just
(30:52):
consistent across the board.
UNKNOWN (30:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (30:54):
And, you know, that's one thing that's very
powerful about the ICAPframework, right, is that since
it boils down to such kind oflike a core thinking and
learning process, it's reallytransferable across subjects,
levels, and backgrounds, right?
So this absolutely can apply toteacher professional development
(31:15):
or adult learning.
And in fact, it should, right?
UNKNOWN (31:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (31:19):
So, so one thing that, you know, I was really
compelled by when I firststarted learning about this
framework as a young researchscientist is just how beautiful
and elegant the ICAP frameworkwas as a unifying way to make
sense of like hundreds,thousands of research studies on
(31:40):
learning that seemed to havelike mismatched or kind of just
evidence that went all over theplaces.
There's like a really hard, itwas really challenging to make
sense of all of this learningresearch.
Like, oh, well, sometimes workedexamples worked here, but other
times explanations work better.
And why did this learning thingwork better here?
And this one worked better overthere.
It was a big old mess.
And And then I learned about theICAP framework and the ICAP
(32:05):
hypothesis predicts thatprogress, like it just made
sense of hundreds of studies.
So the ICAP hypothesis, ithypothesizes that active is
better than passive learning.
Constructive is better thanactive learning.
And then interactive is betterthan constructive, right?
So this hypothesis predictsprogressively greater learning
(32:29):
as you move up the modes.
And this has been testedextensively.
SPEAKER_00 (32:33):
We have talked across the previous couple
episodes, this idea of a panaceaor a silver bullet in education
is not helpful.
And it creates false hope.
And I think that's how we gotobjectives on the board.
Right.
So is that the research said,you know, student objectives are
really important and they canthey can make this change
(32:56):
happen.
And we're going to talk aboutHattie in a future episode.
And so we will talk about howstatistics can be dangerous.
And so I I want to what I'mhearing is.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
(33:30):
where we are asking students todo things where they interact
with one another and thematerial, it is much more likely
that learning is taking place.
And it is less likely if allwe're doing is asking them to
listen.
Correct.
Not that listening is bad, butthat it's going to get us a
lower return on moving studentstoward the thing that we're
(33:51):
trying to get them to understandabout the world.
I'm on board.
I think I got it now.
Fantastic.
I have one very importantquestion, though, for you.
If we're trying to get tointeracting, why does it come
first?
Why is this in reverse order?
SPEAKER_02 (34:07):
Because you say it backwards, it's packy.
I don't know.
It just doesn't ring as much,you
SPEAKER_00 (34:13):
know?
There's also a framework that ismore connected to technology and
education that is the PICRAT.
Oh.
No, PICRAT, which is not...
SPEAKER_01 (34:22):
That sounds
SPEAKER_00 (34:23):
fun.
That's an unfortunate acronymright there.
SPEAKER_02 (34:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:27):
You got to
SPEAKER_02 (34:28):
brand your frameworks.
SPEAKER_00 (34:29):
Yeah.
Catherine, this is very, veryhelpful.
Thank you so much for taking thetime to talk to us.
My pleasure.
Very much appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01 (34:39):
Yes.
Thank you so much.
Happy to be here.
Thanks, guys.
Thanks for listening to today'sepisode of Academic
Distinctions.
As always, we hope you enjoyedyour time learning with us and
encourage you to like andsubscribe to the podcast and
share it with a friend or two.
Send it to your dad for Father'sDay.
Bring it up with your therapist.
Tell your doctor to write yourprescription for it so you can
(35:00):
use some of your PTO to listento it, whatever it takes.
Cheers, friends.
UNKNOWN (45:32):
Thank you.
Hi, I'm Stephanie Melville.
SPEAKER_00 (00:16):
And I'm Zach Chase.
SPEAKER_01 (00:17):
And this is Academic Distinctions, a podcast where we
try to make sense of Americaneducation.
SPEAKER_00 (00:24):
You might not be like us.
SPEAKER_01 (00:27):
You might not stalk the teaching and education
Reddit boards.
SPEAKER_00 (00:30):
You might not notice there is a frequent complaint
among teachers.
SPEAKER_01 (00:34):
Why do I have to put my objectives on the board?
Or...
Does it really help to put myobjectives on the board?
SPEAKER_00 (00:42):
Well, in today's episode, we're going to depart
from our usual examination andmaking sense of the news in
education.
SPEAKER_01 (00:49):
Instead, we're going to look at a very common
practice.
SPEAKER_00 (00:53):
Not just a practice, but a requirement.
SPEAKER_01 (00:55):
Okay.
A requirement of modernteachers, writing their
objectives on the board.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01):
If you've taught in any public classroom in the last
three decades or so, you wereprobably told by a coach, a
principal, an AP, or aconsultant, you need to put your
objective on the board.
SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
They usually start something like, students will be
able to, and then end either insome version of an academic
standard or a description of thework to be done in class that
day.
SPEAKER_00 (01:24):
I even had a colleague who had the same
objective on the board for weeksat a time.
SPEAKER_01 (01:30):
And at its height, this was something teachers
would get dinged on in theirregular evaluations.
SPEAKER_00 (01:35):
The lesson was great, but I didn't see the
objective on the board.
At
SPEAKER_01 (01:40):
some point, objectives on the board were
almost considered necessary orequivalent to students actually
learning.
SPEAKER_00 (01:48):
This had its origins in research.
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
Shh, no spoilers.
SPEAKER_00 (01:52):
Okay.
UNKNOWN (01:53):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (01:53):
Our hypothesis is this practice has its roots all
the way back to just about theend of World War II, and it
starts with a guy named BenjaminBloom.
SPEAKER_00 (02:02):
Now, Benjamin Bloom was an educational psychologist,
and he and some colleaguesstarted in the late 1940s trying
to solve a problem we'll getinto in a second.
But first, one piece ofhousekeeping.
If you have been a classroomteacher sometime in the last 40
years or so, and you hear thewords Bloom's Taxonomy...
(02:23):
you just got a picture in yourhead.
That picture is probably atriangle.
Many people might call it apyramid, but it is a triangle.
SPEAKER_01 (02:31):
And depending on when you first saw this
triangle, it might look a littlebit different.
SPEAKER_00 (02:38):
At the bottom is either the word knowledge or
remembering.
And
SPEAKER_01 (02:42):
at the top is either the word evaluation or create.
SPEAKER_00 (02:46):
And if someone asks you to think about,
quote-unquote, higher orderthinking skills, your memory
tries to picture the other wordsat the top of the triangle.
SPEAKER_01 (02:56):
For lower order thinking skills, you try to
picture the bottom.
SPEAKER_00 (03:01):
This is what most people picture when they picture
Bloom's taxonomy.
SPEAKER_01 (03:06):
But here's the thing.
When Bloom and his friendspublished their taxonomy, it
didn't include a triangle.
SPEAKER_00 (03:13):
Or a pyramid.
SPEAKER_01 (03:14):
In fact, his contemporaries have said that
this was likely created bysomeone who needed to include
the taxonomy in a PowerPointpresentation during a
professional development orsomething and likely borrowed
from another familiareducational triangle, Maslow's
hierarchy of needs.
SPEAKER_00 (03:30):
But that is another episode.
SPEAKER_01 (03:33):
This is just the first of many misunderstandings
and misappropriations of Bloom'staxonomy throughout the history
of his existence.
SPEAKER_00 (03:40):
And we would argue that misunderstanding is really
important because the history oflearning and American schools is
littered with people taking anidea and appropriating it to do
something for which it was neverintended and for which they have
no evidence it will work to helpkids.
SPEAKER_01 (03:59):
Think Ariel and her dinglehopper.
SPEAKER_00 (04:01):
If you know, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (04:04):
So we've got Benjamin and we've got his knot
triangle.
Now let's dive into the historyof Bloom's taxonomy and how we
think it ends with ourobjectives on the board.
SPEAKER_00 (04:13):
Oh, one more thing.
One of our favorite quotes inresearching this episode comes
from Benjamin Bloom, who saidthe taxonomy is one of the most
frequently cited books ineducation that no one has ever
read.
SPEAKER_01 (04:27):
But don't worry, we read it.
SPEAKER_00 (04:28):
Our objective for the day?
SPEAKER_01 (04:31):
Listeners will be able to make sense of how
American education arrived atwriting objectives on the board.
SPEAKER_00 (04:45):
Let's get started in the spirit of Sophia Petrillo.
Picture it.
Boston, 1948.
At the annual meeting of theAmerican Psychological
Association, a bunch of collegeexaminers.
Now, these are guys...
probably mostly guys, maybe somewomen, whose job it is to
oversee and implement theend-of-term examinations for
(05:09):
colleges across the country.
And one of the things theynoticed was the exams maybe
asked kids or students to do thesame things using different
language.
It was a problem because theycouldn't talk about what was
expected in a Bio 101 class,let's say in Boston, and a Bio
101 class in Chicago.
(05:30):
So there was a discussion.
It maybe sounded something like,we ought to have a theoretical
framework which could be used tofacilitate communication among
examiners or something likethat.
SPEAKER_01 (05:42):
And then 1949 to 1953, a group of folks started
to get together annually afterthat meeting in 1948.
They met at differentuniversities each year and
started to build that frameworkby looking at existing
objectives and trying toclassify them.
34 folks are listed ascontributing to this work across
(06:03):
the years.
SPEAKER_00 (06:05):
In 1954, publishers printed 1,000 draft copies to be
sent to a large group of collegeand secondary school teachers,
administrators, curriculumdirectors, and educational
research specialists for theircomments and feedback.
SPEAKER_01 (06:21):
In 1956, it was finally published as Taxonomy of
Educational Objectives, TheClassification of Educational
Goals.
SPEAKER_00 (06:29):
What a snappy title.
SPEAKER_01 (06:30):
Right, right.
According to one of Bloom'sstudents, Lauren Anderson, it
was known within the educationalexaminer crowd, but didn't
really take off until...
SPEAKER_00 (06:41):
Well, with a title like that, you would think it
would have taken off right away.
Fast forward to 1965, Congresspasses the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act,bringing unprecedented federal
funding to support of publiceducation, what President
Johnson called the passport outof poverty.
Folks wanted to know if thefunds were doing anything, and
(07:02):
they looked to a guy named RalphTyler's Planning, Programming,
and Budget System, or PPBS,which was built on the idea of
setting an objective andmeasuring the achievement of the
outcome.
Shouldn't be earth-shattering tothose of you who have ever taken
a test on things you weresupposed to learn, but this
wasn't really a system built foreducation.
So for the language they needed,they turned to what had become
(07:25):
known as Bloom's Taxonomy,putting the taxonomy...
Now,
SPEAKER_01 (07:32):
keep this in mind.
In 1960, only one state had astatewide standardized exam.
SPEAKER_00 (07:39):
Now we fast forward.
1984.
At a meeting of the ASCD, agroup about staff development
and learning for teachers, 28other organizations are also
represented.
And they note the dominance ofBloom's taxonomy and the
misalignment, right?
Remember, Bloom and hiscolleagues were just trying to
describe what was happening.
(08:00):
And all of a sudden, thistaxonomy was used to help
educators figure out how towrite what they were trying to
do.
They said, this is misaligned,and there ought to be an update.
But they never do.
SPEAKER_01 (08:12):
In 1985, now 32 states have standardized tests.
SPEAKER_00 (08:16):
And Bloom's taxonomy is more important than ever in
helping to define what studentsshould know and writing learning
objectives.
In 1994, Lauren Anderson, theformer student of Bloom's, and
Lauren Sosniak edit a 40-yearretrospective on the impact of
the taxonomy.
SPEAKER_01 (08:35):
In 1997, Norman Webb develops his depth of knowledge
or DOK framework.
that breaks things students areasked to do into four different
buckets of rigor or complexity.
As students progress through theDOK levels, they should
encounter tasks that requirethem to think, quote, harder
(08:58):
about what they need to do tosucceed.
Not only do we get a brand newframework, but this sets off a
frustrating conflation of weband bloom that lasts to this
day.
SPEAKER_00 (09:10):
Now we should point out, Webb's framework wasn't the
only competing framework.
In fact, when ESEA was passed in65, Bloom's was highlighted, and
then everybody flocked to try toget the best framework to get
the money to help set up all ofthese exams.
In 2001, Anderson and David R.
(09:30):
Crathwell, one of the originaltaxonomy contributors, edit A
Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching,and Assessing, a revision of
Bloom's Taxonomy of EducationalObjectives.
This revised taxonomy moves thedomains from nouns like
knowledge to verbs like rememberand attempts to expand on the
(09:51):
complex kinds of knowledge inthe world.
They also add create in place ofevaluation to shift toward the
way educators have been using itrather than what it was
originally built to do.
Students bringing something intothe world rather than reacting
to what was there.
This was an attempt to createsomething that actually lined up
(10:12):
to how the taxonomy had beenused and develop it from the
ground up so that teachers wereusing it in the right way.
Also in 2001, Robert Marzano andJohn Kendall publish The New
Taxonomy of EducationalObjectives, a very similar
framework to Bloom's.
There's no pyramid in this oneeither, but some really nice 3D
(10:32):
work to deepen the thinking onwhat is knowledge.
SPEAKER_01 (10:36):
Again, still.
In 2001, Marzano, DeborahPickering, and Jane Pollock
publish Classroom InstructionThat Works, Research-Based
Strategies for IncreasingStudent Achievement.
Number eight on that list?
SPEAKER_04 (10:50):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:50):
Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback, funded
at least in part by the U.S.
Department of Education.
SPEAKER_00 (10:58):
So let's recap.
We've got multiple frameworks.
We've got a federal statute thatsays we need to test whether or
not students are learning whatthey're doing.
And we've got a lot of peoplesaying students need to be doing
more complex things.
In 2002, Congress passes thebipartisan supported No Child
Left Behind Act into law.
(11:20):
For the first time, federalfunding is based off of how
students are achieving andgrowing.
And it starts to require thetesting and grouping of
subgroups of students tounderstand if there are
achievement gaps acrossdifferent demographics of folks.
SPEAKER_01 (11:34):
In 2007...
Marzano and Kendall release asecond edition, and yet we still
stick to Bloom's originalpyramid.
SPEAKER_00 (11:43):
In 2008, not related on its face to education,
there's a global housing marketcrash.
Why is that important?
Because the majority of schoolfunding across the country comes
from property taxes.
And if people can't pay fortheir property taxes, schools
face budget shortfalls.
(12:04):
But don't worry, the federalgovernment has a plan.
SPEAKER_01 (12:07):
In 2009, Race to the Top is announced.
It's a nearly$4.5 billioncompetitive grant program
initiated by the U.S.
Department of Education, andit's aimed at encouraging and
rewarding states forimplementing significant reforms
in K-12 education.
The initiative sought to improveteaching and learning by
providing incentives for statesto adopt innovative educational
(12:29):
policies and practices.
It marked a historic moment inAmerican education, aiming to
spur systemic reform and enhancestudent outcomes across the
nation.
SPEAKER_00 (12:40):
And what kind of standards was it hoping states
would adopt?
Well, of course, standards thatfocused on higher order thinking
skills.
Everybody pictured the triangleand got to work.
And then in 2012, according toGoogle's Ngram, objective on the
board peaks.
(13:00):
as occurring in texts acrosspublication.
SPEAKER_01 (13:03):
In 2013, Anderson and Crathwell release an update
attempting to add clarity to theoriginal work and move the field
away from the misuse of Bloom'soriginal work, second edition
style.
Still, Bloom's pyramid persists.
SPEAKER_00 (13:18):
But at least people start to picture it with create
at the top and not justevaluate.
In 2015, two exams are rulingexams.
PARC Also in 2015, the EveryStudent
SPEAKER_01 (13:46):
Succeeds Act, ESSA, replaces No Child Left Behind.
requiring every state to measureperformance in reading, math,
and science, and requiring everystate to develop an easily
understandable state report cardthat is available online and
provides parents and taxpayersimportant information on test
(14:09):
performance in those subjects.
SPEAKER_00 (14:12):
And that brings us to this year, 2025.
76 years after the advent ofBloom's, the newest classroom
instruction that works isedition is out, citing setting
goals with students as apowerful practice, moving away
from just making sure there's anobjective.
(14:35):
This takes us back to some ofthe roots of Bloom's, helping
students and educators thinkabout what the goals of learning
might be.
So that little pyramid, or atleast the ideas behind it, have
been around for three quartersof a century, and only now Are
we getting back to some of theintended roots and uses of it?
(14:59):
So Stephanie, what have welearned on this chronological
history of a taxonomy?
SPEAKER_01 (15:05):
Follow the money.
SPEAKER_00 (15:06):
What?
SPEAKER_01 (15:07):
Follow the money.
Follow the money and see whereit goes.
It just kind of feels like assoon as there was money thrown
behind a particular initiative,everybody was clamoring to get
it, get their hands on it.
SPEAKER_00 (15:19):
Without ESEA and...
federal funding in publiceducation, I'm wondering if
Bloom's taxonomy would ever havemade it into the larger
educational mindset.
SPEAKER_01 (15:31):
It also just reminds me of the fact that, you know,
when I was in my teaching daysand in my district leadership
days, everybody's looking for asilver bullet.
Everything in education is tiedto how can we find a reliable
and fingers crossed that it'seasy way to improve student
(15:52):
achievement and do it quickly.
And gosh, you know, if there's apyramid
SPEAKER_00 (15:57):
triangle,
SPEAKER_01 (15:59):
sorry, triangle.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Uh, there's just, there's gottabe a way to point to the fact
that, uh, these, these things,these verbs at the top are going
to be the ones that are the bestat granting students,
SPEAKER_00 (16:17):
uh, The other interesting thing sort of
related to that is that as whilethe taxonomy was not meant to be
used in the way that it came tobe used, a number of people have
published a lot of differentresources to try to correct that
misappropriation.
And it just hasn't taken off,right?
(16:38):
People still picture thattriangle.
People still picture thatprogression.
So you never really get a secondchance to make a first
impression.
It's true.
The last thing I would say, anda key takeaway here of thinking
through this history, and Ithink it's important for all of
the ideas we discuss on thisshow.
If we want to move complex ideasinto educators practice, into
(17:00):
learning, into anybody's way ofdoing things, we need to give
them time and space tounderstand those ideas deeply.
We can bring the mandate quicklywith money, but we can't shift
practice.
We can't shift what people aredoing to help people learn as
quickly unless they get time tofigure out why they actually are
doing the thing, which takes usback to Reddit and every teacher
(17:21):
that says, why do I have to do
SPEAKER_01 (17:23):
this?
For me, that time componentreally hits home, Zach.
When we talked at the beginningwhere we said we're talking
about just about the end ofWorld War II, 76 years ago,
you're saying, and how long hasthis persisted?
But when we think about justmodern education and how
different or not different it isfrom education 100 years ago.
(17:48):
I mean, we're still teaching thesame traditional algebra,
geometry, algebra two sequencethat we were teaching.
Who we're teaching might change,but
SPEAKER_00 (17:56):
what we're teaching- It's a snuggly blanket of
comfortable math.
SPEAKER_01 (18:00):
Yeah, right.
No, the world hasn't changed, somath hasn't changed, right?
SPEAKER_00 (18:06):
So we thought- that it probably wouldn't be a good
idea to ruin objectives on theboard, to throw everything
people think about Bloom'staxonomy into the wind and then
just leave.
So stick around.
We're going to finish up with aconversation with one of our
colleagues, Catherine McKeldin,to talk about how folks might
move away from a pyramid, not apyramid, a triangle, how they
(18:32):
might move away from a trianglein setting some objectives for
learning for everyone.
We'll be right back.
Welcome back.
All right.
(18:53):
So as per usual, Stephanie and Irealized there is a limit, an
upper limit to our knowledge,and we have hit it.
We give you a good history ofBloom's taxonomy and how we
ended up, we think, withobjectives on the board.
But for a little more and todive in what that all means,
we're happy to welcome CatherineMcKeldin, a research to practice
connector, a cognitive andlearning scientist.
(19:15):
By training, Catherine hasworked across academia,
government, and industry toensure the best scientific
insights support studentlearning.
No matter the context, sheserved as a lead learning
scientist in Pearson's efficacyand learning division, where she
led the creation of Pearson'slearning design principles, a
scalable research informedtoolkit used to design and
(19:36):
evaluate digital learningproducts.
She holds a BA in Brain andCognitive Sciences from the
University of Rochester, an MSand PhD in Psychology and Human
Development from VanderbiltUniversity, and completed a
post-doctoral fellowship atArizona State University where
she scaled up the ICAP frameworkacross area middle and high
(19:56):
schools.
That last part, that ICAPframework, is why we're very
excited to have you here.
Welcome, Catherine.
SPEAKER_02 (20:04):
Yes, welcome.
Thank you so much for having me.
Pleasure to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (20:08):
ICAP, as with so many things in education, is an
acronym.
Can you talk us through it sothat folks have an understanding
of what we are going to betalking about?
SPEAKER_02 (20:18):
So at its heart, ICAP is a theory about how
students engage with learningmaterials and how different
levels of engagement lead tolearning outcomes.
We hear engagement all the timein the context of learning.
Yes, it's important, but whatdoes it mean?
Right.
That's an important question.
So the core idea here is simplebut powerful, which is the way
the students engagesignificantly impacts what they
(20:40):
learn.
And the more cognitively engagedthe learner is, the better.
Right.
And so ICAP proposes ahierarchy.
Learning generally improves asstudents now go to the ICAP
here.
Right.
Generally improves a studentmove from passive to active
learning.
then to constructive, andfinally to interactive, which is
(21:00):
where we summarize as the ICAPhypothesis.
SPEAKER_01 (21:03):
What do those different words look like?
Yeah.
Can you expand a little bitmore?
SPEAKER_02 (21:09):
Sure, absolutely.
So let's start out with passive,right?
So all of these words haveintuitive kind of meanings here,
but ICAP framework defines themin a very specific and I think
very useful way.
Right.
So passive where students arelike listening, watching,
observing or reading.
So here students are receivinginformation without any overt
(21:32):
action beyond paying attention.
So I'm listening to a lecture,but maybe I'm not taking notes
or I'm watching a video, but I'mnot doing anything additional
here.
So the primary cognitive processthat's happening here is just
receiving and storinginformation.
So moving up to the active levelhere.
Now, this is where we get a lotof crosstalk.
We hear a lot about activelearning writ large in
(21:53):
education, right?
Again, another one of these bigterms like engagement where it's
like everyone kind of says it,but there's not always a crisp
definition for it.
And ICAP defines it in a veryparticular way here.
And I'd say an importantdistinction with ICAP is that
like it separates out whatphysically and behaviorally the
(22:14):
student is doing as a means tomake inferences about what
they're thinking.
And we'll circle back to thatidea here.
(22:48):
they're not generating anythingnew or making any new inferences
or connections.
That's where we get to theconstructive level.
SPEAKER_00 (22:55):
We started with listening or reading and then
there's a like, would summer islike summarization or note
taking or even conversation.
Like what did you hear?
Talk to a peer.
People were talking about that,that kind of active level.
Like,
SPEAKER_02 (23:12):
yeah, it now, now this is where, so yes, it could.
Depends on if the learner iscoming up with new information.
SPEAKER_00 (23:22):
Okay.
So that's the, I'm hearing thatthat's the threshold of like, if
we're just repeating orrecalling to use some of the
kind of Bloom's language onthere, then I'm still, still
just inactive, but I'm not in, Ihaven't gotten to the C, which
is what Catherine?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (23:42):
Ah, the C stands for constructive.
And this is where the magichappens, right?
Now we're getting into thericher for learning level.
So passive and active are goodwhen the time comes.
They have their place, butconstructive and interactive is
where the real thinking andlearning happens.
(24:03):
So at the constructive levelhere, critically, students
generate new information orideas beyond what is presented.
Cognitive processes, right?
Blooms, call up all of yourblooms words here, like
inferring, explaining,reorganizing, elaborating.
In short, we're generating newideas here.
SPEAKER_00 (24:25):
The piece here would be if I've changed the wording
or if I've kind of synthesizedthe information to put it in my
own words, then I've trippedover from active to
constructive.
SPEAKER_02 (24:38):
Correct, because that requires in the learner's
mind them to make newconnections and inferences and
new ideas and new knowledgethere, right?
So here I am generating, I'mconstructing new knowledge at
this level, whereas at theactive level, I just had to play
with the pieces that were infront of me.
SPEAKER_01 (24:59):
That makes a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_02 (25:01):
So then what is interactive?
So interactive is two studentsbeing constructive together.
And you feel this all the timewhere you're, you know, you two,
I'm sure are interactive all thetime and you guys can come up
with ideas together that youwould never come up with on your
own because you're building onideas.
Ah, what if we did it this way?
Oh, that made me think ofsomething else.
(25:21):
And now let's, now let's dothis.
And so when two people aremutually and reciprocally
generating new informationtogether, you and you're
collaboratively elaborating,that results in the deepest
learning of all.
SPEAKER_01 (25:38):
That speaks a lot to me.
So in my time as a math coach,right, one of the things that we
would always tell our teacherswas, you know, you have to make
space for students tocollaborate.
They've got to be able to worktogether.
They've got to be able to talkabout it together.
And then one of the things thatwe always– would say during our
(25:59):
professional learning was, youknow, the people who are doing
the most talking are doing themost learning.
So if you're doing the mosttalking in your classroom, who's
doing the most learning in theclassroom, you got to give space
to your students to speakbecause if they're not talking,
then they're not doing the bulkof the learning.
SPEAKER_02 (26:15):
One, one thing that's powerful or one thing
that's useful about the ICAPframework is that it not only,
it also provides a tool where,for kind of checking yourself
and checking to see if yourinstruction is really pushing
and driving the learning thatyou want it to, right?
So you can check yourself to seelike, oh, I asked my students
(26:37):
these questions, these things,is it being as effective as I
want it to?
And you can look at their workor listen to their conversations
and listen for, are they comingup with new ideas?
right?
And that's your test on ifyou've actually gotten them up
to the constructive orinteractive level.
SPEAKER_01 (26:58):
So this is really cool.
I do have one question aboutthis framework, this model is,
you know, can these things bedone out of order?
Or does it have to be like, itseems like it's kind of almost
like a hierarchy of learningprinciples.
But, you know, one of the thingsthat I think a lot of educators
pride themselves on is theirflexibility to move from pillar
(27:19):
to pillar.
So can these things be done outof order or should they be done
in a particular order?
SPEAKER_02 (27:23):
Oh, that's great.
I'm so glad you asked thatbecause what I don't want people
to think is that this is aprescriptive order or like a
mandate.
And it certainly isn't like youwant to start passive and then
move to active and move up.
Like consider all of these modesas tools that you can use
whenever you find appropriate.
So there's no implicit orderhere.
(27:46):
And frankly, sometimes the lowerlevels or the active level only
might be completely appropriatefor your learning goals.
Not every learning objective orlearning goal requires this
interactive level here.
SPEAKER_00 (28:04):
That's an interesting piece because...
And I think this is kind of theuse and abuse of blooms and the
whole higher order thinkingpiece is that all of a sudden in
that moment, we told teachersthis isn't higher order
thinking.
So we privileged creation andkind of said, oh, remembering is
(28:27):
not super important.
Whereas, you know, the only ourability to have this
conversation right now isbecause.
Catherine has so much practicein remembering what she's
talking about, the ability toarticulate and interact right
now was built, right?
So it's not that one is betterthan the other.
In fact, it sounds like They allhave their place.
SPEAKER_02 (28:49):
Absolutely.
You need that kind offoundational set of knowledge
first before you can move intomore complex forms of thinking.
So jumping right into thecomplex stuff is not going to
get you there unless you haveyour times tables memorized, as
it were.
SPEAKER_00 (29:05):
I'm starting to see the difference between ICAP and
Bloom's taxonomy and thedifferent versions, right?
The revised and Marzano's workon Bloom's.
How do you see ICAP and Bloom'sbeing dissimilar from one
another?
SPEAKER_02 (29:21):
ICAP focuses on students' observable behaviors
and the products they generate.
So instead of categorizingthinking directly, which you
famously cannot see or havereally good evidence for, ICAP
categorizes the behavioralengagement, the actual
activities that you can see thestudents do in your classrooms.
(29:45):
Are they passively receiving,actively manipulating,
constructively generating,interactively co-generating?
Then we can infer the underlyingthinking from these behaviors
and outputs.
So this explicit link from thebehavioral activity that you can
see and have evidence for to thecognitive thinking process is
(30:05):
key in the unique value-add ofICAP.
SPEAKER_00 (30:08):
I know we're talking about students in the classroom,
but I think it is occurring tome that this is also a method
for change management within asystem or any institution.
SPEAKER_02 (30:19):
Yeah.
I mean, adult learning isfamously bad at using good
pedagogy.
UNKNOWN (30:26):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (30:28):
We
SPEAKER_00 (30:29):
expect them to do it better with children.
So that's wonderful.
SPEAKER_02 (30:32):
Well, yeah.
I mean, look, so my perspectiveas a cognitive scientist, as a
learning scientist, is thatlearning is learning is
learning, right?
Good learning is the same forgenerally everyone.
There's always exceptions.
I'm sure someone could fight meon it, but there are some
general principles about humanlearning that are just
(30:52):
consistent across the board.
UNKNOWN (30:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (30:54):
And, you know, that's one thing that's very
powerful about the ICAPframework, right, is that since
it boils down to such kind oflike a core thinking and
learning process, it's reallytransferable across subjects,
levels, and backgrounds, right?
So this absolutely can apply toteacher professional development
(31:15):
or adult learning.
And in fact, it should, right?
UNKNOWN (31:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (31:19):
So, so one thing that, you know, I was really
compelled by when I firststarted learning about this
framework as a young researchscientist is just how beautiful
and elegant the ICAP frameworkwas as a unifying way to make
sense of like hundreds,thousands of research studies on
(31:40):
learning that seemed to havelike mismatched or kind of just
evidence that went all over theplaces.
There's like a really hard, itwas really challenging to make
sense of all of this learningresearch.
Like, oh, well, sometimes workedexamples worked here, but other
times explanations work better.
And why did this learning thingwork better here?
And this one worked better overthere.
It was a big old mess.
And And then I learned about theICAP framework and the ICAP
(32:05):
hypothesis predicts thatprogress, like it just made
sense of hundreds of studies.
So the ICAP hypothesis, ithypothesizes that active is
better than passive learning.
Constructive is better thanactive learning.
And then interactive is betterthan constructive, right?
So this hypothesis predictsprogressively greater learning
(32:29):
as you move up the modes.
And this has been testedextensively.
SPEAKER_00 (32:33):
We have talked across the previous couple
episodes, this idea of a panaceaor a silver bullet in education
is not helpful.
And it creates false hope.
And I think that's how we gotobjectives on the board.
Right.
So is that the research said,you know, student objectives are
really important and they canthey can make this change
(32:56):
happen.
And we're going to talk aboutHattie in a future episode.
And so we will talk about howstatistics can be dangerous.
And so I I want to what I'mhearing is.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
(33:30):
where we are asking students todo things where they interact
with one another and thematerial, it is much more likely
that learning is taking place.
And it is less likely if allwe're doing is asking them to
listen.
Correct.
Not that listening is bad, butthat it's going to get us a
lower return on moving studentstoward the thing that we're
(33:51):
trying to get them to understandabout the world.
I'm on board.
I think I got it now.
Fantastic.
I have one very importantquestion, though, for you.
If we're trying to get tointeracting, why does it come
first?
Why is this in reverse order?
SPEAKER_02 (34:07):
Because you say it backwards, it's packy.
I don't know.
It just doesn't ring as much,you
SPEAKER_00 (34:13):
know?
There's also a framework that ismore connected to technology and
education that is the PICRAT.
Oh.
No, PICRAT, which is not...
SPEAKER_01 (34:22):
That sounds
SPEAKER_00 (34:23):
fun.
That's an unfortunate acronymright there.
SPEAKER_02 (34:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:27):
You got to
SPEAKER_02 (34:28):
brand your frameworks.
SPEAKER_00 (34:29):
Yeah.
Catherine, this is very, veryhelpful.
Thank you so much for taking thetime to talk to us.
My pleasure.
Very much appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01 (34:39):
Yes.
Thank you so much.
Happy to be here.
Thanks, guys.
Thanks for listening to today'sepisode of Academic
Distinctions.
As always, we hope you enjoyedyour time learning with us and
encourage you to like andsubscribe to the podcast and
share it with a friend or two.
Send it to your dad for Father'sDay.
Bring it up with your therapist.
Tell your doctor to write yourprescription for it so you can
(35:00):
use some of your PTO to listento it, whatever it takes.
Cheers, friends.
UNKNOWN (45:32):
Thank you.
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