Google-Proof Questioning

I found this blog site called The Electric Educator while exploring all the resources out there, and it caught me as pertinent, especially since we’ve been reading on the new Bloom’s Taxonomy for the 21st Century skills. As we have all been teaching ourselves these new skills and jargon for 21C, and probably just barely on the “knowledge” level of the hierarchy, I thought that this was interesting for our own thinking and approach in the classroom. I know I have been frustrated at times by the simple “cut and paste” of many student reports, and wished I could find a way to help wean them off that approach to web research. Actually designing your activity for the higher level thinking skills and actively encouraging the students to truly research, understand, analyze and then create (synthesize) their product just makes so much more sense. I have a major project coming up, and will take a closer look at the tasks and work I am asking students to create. It’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds!