Mashup of Bloom’s Taxonomy & Merrill’s Principles

In my mashup, Bloom and Merrill combine to create a strong focus on student centered, problem-based learning.

In the first section, I wanted to start with CREATING since the problem/scenario is the focus. This way, students will know that their main purpose for learning is to generate new ways to look or solve the issue I’ve brought up.

Next, I will have students relate their existing knowledge of the problem/concept so they can rev up their brainwaves. In this step, it is important for me to design specific activities for students to remember the information --through practice and repetition.

After their brains are awake and starting to make some connections, students need to apply their understanding of the new information. This is a critical step since students will be easily distracted with the “hard” work of applying something new. I will need to incorporate collaboration and active learning strategies as well as personal feedback many times during this section.

Lastly, students will need to evaluate their learning and responses to the problem/scenario under consideration. Groups will need to discuss their solutions in order to make recommendations based on their new learning.

The process, to me, repeats as needed. Learning is messy, so students who engage in multiple ways to look at a real-world problem will benefit from more nuanced parts of learning a concept.