Teachers' Taxonomy Version 1.0
One of the biggest obstacles to effective teaching is meeting the diverse needs of multiple students. In my classroom this year, the reading ability of my 5th graders range from 1st through 12th grade. This points to the daily challenge educators face of delivering information students can relate to and understand. Other challenges include individualized pacing, differentiated learning models, and tapping into learners’ interests and prior experiences to increase motivation.
To serve students best, teachers need to be able to assess a broad range of skills, attitude, and abilities from each student. We support learners best by delivering material that matches a student's academic level, appeals to their personal interests, and allows them to move on when new information has been absorbed. Moreover, effectiveness in learning is increased as learners are enabled to explore answers to authentic questions when they arises.
The days of teachers holding and delivering all of the information are over. Rather than writing lesson plans written for teachers to translated to students, lessons plans now can be written and delivered directly to students. Effect experiences will be ranked by students and teachers thereby sending more popular content to the top of any particular search. By classifying content and housing it in one central location we develop a new platform for teacher-to-teacher, student-to-teacher, and student-to-student collaboration. This delivery forum would create transparency and quality control indicators for instructional material. Further, we would minimize the gap between what instruction individuals need and what they receive. As we explore how to leverage technology to improve learning, considerations must focus on supporting learners through personalized learning experiences.
Over the past decade, we’ve seen the consumer market shift to a personalized environment. Companies are effectively employing consumer profiling, sophisticated product classification tools, and intuitive marketing to match consumers with products of interests. The ability to define consumer and product attributes has allowed companies to customize the consumer experience. By applying classification and data mining techniques in the field of education we will increase our ability to support individual learners.
The purpose of developing a content categorization system is to support the distribution of learning material directly to students at the depth and rigor of their skill level. An open source content management system developed for k-12 would allow us to shift from the traditional “one size fits all” seat-time model to a mastery based model. Classifying content by characteristics such as the type of learning environment, mastery level, instructional strategy, and assessment type will provide students with a truly customized learning experience. Devising a common standard beyond the usual grade level, subject, standard will allow us create a new level of learner support, and to extract and deliver the highest quality of learning activities to all students.
SAMPLE TEACHING TAXONOMY SYSTEM
Age Range
|