Bloom’s Taxonomy
Teachers, in general, have a level of expectation from their students. Educators strive to provide best practices in their teaching in order to improve student achievement. They are responsible for developing and/or implementing effective curriculum and instruction (Tomlinson, 2004). It is always a challenge when many students lack basic skills which prevent them to succeed in subsequent courses. Student readiness has been an issue for the past decade especially in the fields of English and Mathematics. Much research has surfaced in order to understand the disparities in achievement gaps. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2002 under President George W. Bush, challenges educators, policy makers and students to answer the fundamental question “Can all children learn?” with the immediate response of “Yes, they can.” (Davison, Seo, Davenport, Butterbaugh, & Davison, 2004). The central issue here is not whether all students can learn, but “How will low-income and minority students, as appropriate, make up for years of low achievement competence?” There has been a push in higher education to closing the achievement gap between these two groups. For instance, The Achieving the Dream Initiative (ATD) was established by the Lumina Foundation, among others foundations, to increase success for students attending community colleges. The initiative is particularly concerned about student groups that traditionally have faced obstacles in succeeding, including low-income students as well as minority students (Achieving the Dream, 2005).

One might suggest that a theoretical approach to remedy this situation is to promote mastery learning. Bloom (1968) suggested five variables for mastery learning strategies: 1) aptitude for particular kinds of learning, 2) quality of instruction, 3) ability to understand instruction, 4) perseverance, and 5) time allowed for learning. When all these variables are taken into consideration then the level of abstraction or synthesis has been reached. However, in a world where technology has permeated all aspect of our lives, mastery for learning is slowly fading away. This was a topic of concern with Tarlow and Spangler (2001) as they explored the risks of compromising higher level thinking with the presence of technology. Bloom did not foresee this major trend, but the fact remains that we live in a technologically driven society that hungers for more technology.

Will students achieve the level of abstraction suggested by Bloom (1968)? In my opinion, it is very difficult for some students to mastery learn a subject. There are many external factors that will impede this from happening. We, as educators, like to think that all students will leave our classrooms as experts, but in reality we are satisfied with a level of understanding to the extent that they are able to recognize some aspects of the subject matter if stumble upon it in the future.

References

Achieving the dream (2005, September). Retrieved November 4, 2006, from http://www.achievingthedream.org/default.tp.

Bloom, B. (1968). Learning for mastery. Evaluation Comment, 1 (2), 1-12.

Davidson, M. L., Seo, Y.S., Davenport, E.C., Butterbaugh, D., & Davison, L.J. (2004). When do children fall behind? What can be done?. Phi Delta Kappan. 85 (10), 752-762.

Tarlow, M.C., & Spangler, K.L. (2001). Now more than ever: Will high-tech kids still think deeply?. The Education Digest, 67(3), 23-27.

Tomlinson, C.A. (2004). Sharing responsibility for differentiating instruction. Roeper Review. 26(4), 188-190.