Learning Taxonomies are Useful

Tom Gram asked, in a recent post dubbed Fun with Learning Taxonomies:

Have learning taxononomies been useful or irrelevant in your own instructional design work?

The post serves as a nice summary of the most popular taxonmies for learning from Bloom to Merrill. As Tom points out many people use taxonomies as the end all be all of development following a rigidly prescribed methodology for determining learning. More adeptly, Tom points out that a skilled professional can adapt elements of several taxonomies to attain the right blend for achieving performance.

I’ve used taxonomies in many ways, from the prescribed through a blending of element to attain results. All of which have served my purpose at the time. What is important to understand is that everything has a purpose and use when in the right context. A colleague recently talked to me about having an understanding of many models, items, subjects, and then blending them to achieve the results required for the project, task, or job.

To Tom’s question. Yes, I find the understanding of many models of learning taxonomies helpful in my work. As an artisan of the trade, I find that pulling from here and there can be useful when the project calls for such activity. Moreover, I can often attain higher performance than anticipated when I use these models to capture authentic performance.

Right now, I am using Bloom’s taxonomy as the driving force behind my objectives development. Largely because the client is not sophisticated enough to see beyond some basic levels of assessment and performance. Can I move the needle on this? Yes, and over time I will broaden the thinking to really look at performance in terms of a blended model. Why not now? Like most things, I feel that some skill, experience, and tenure with taxonomies and in the trade lead us to the artisan level of blending models to serve our needs.

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