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Dee Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning

Dee Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning is an essential model for faculty to consider as they design their courses and determine their pedagogical approach.  For many years college curriculum was based on the available textbooks.    The professor’s role was to settle on a book that adequately covered a subject and teach that book, chapter by chapter.  The faculty member’s goal was to cover the content.  In the early 1950’s, educators collaborated with curriculum and test designers to create teaching and learning materials for the modern age.  Professors began to design courses to meet particular objectives established by their institutions or perceived as market demand.  In the mid-1950’s Benjamin Bloom conceived a learning taxonomy that has been a foundation for higher education curriculum design.  For Bloom, optimal teaching and learning occurred when instructors systematically guided students through six increasingly complex levels of subject or skill mastery.  In 2013, Dee Fink suggested a revision to Bloom’s linear model.  Fink proposes that significant learning occurs when six critical components work in conjunction to enhance each other.  The more key components a professor includes in her lesson, unit and course, the more significant the learning will be for the student.

Helping Students with Anxiety

We are a few weeks into the semester.  Already, I have had several faculty members express their concern for students who struggle to manage their anxiety. 
This week the Chronicle of Higher Education published an article and video in which college students explain their anxiety.  One student says, “When someone shows concern, or simply listens, that can make all the difference”
Below is a quick method that professors can use in the first few minutes of class to show students care and concern.  The BONUS:  even students who are not struggling with anxiety will benefit from NAPS.
 

Let Us Teach Reflection Guide

Let Us Teach is a unique MLK Day teaching and learning event designed to engage the entire Champlain College campus community.  On January 15th, the first day of Spring Semester, students, faculty and staff are invited to participate in a variety of Let Us Teach educational experiences that will inform and inspire.

If faculty members would like their students to reflect on their experience, the CLT has created a Reflection Guide that can stand alone or be used as a menu of reflection questions from which to create a condensed version.

A simple or condensed version of this guide could be assigning a 1-paper using the following 3 prompts:

  • What I learned
  • Why it matters
  • What I will do

The purpose of reflection is therefore to bring our reasoning processes and behavior patterns to the surface and make them explicit. – Caronlyn Maughan

We are inclined to think of reflection as something quiet and personal. My argument here is that reflection is action-oriented, social and political.  Its ‘product’ is praxis (informed, committed action), the most eloquent and socially significant form of human action. – Stephen Kemmis