I followed a link posted in my twitter feed by one of my #artsedpln members–Thanks Amy Traggianese.  The link brought me to this article:  Flip This:  Bloom’s Taxonomy Should Start with Creating.  In this article, author Shelly Wright proposes that we flip the bloom’s pyramid upside down and begin with creating.  Wright says,

“Rather than starting with knowledge, we start with creating, and eventually discern the knowledge that we need from it.”

Chris Davis, Powerful Learning Practice LLC

For years I had my kids memorize facts and try to get them to understand what we were learning–whether it be about color mixing or bas relief.  Then they would try to apply what they learned into an artwork that I created for them.  They never really got to the creating part.

With my TAB classroom, I think this fits in perfectly.  My young artists go through this new version of Bloom’s every time we create new artworks.  They brainstorm/draft/sketch ideas first and foremost–create.  They then look over those ideas and see what works and what doesn’t work–evaluate and analyze.  Sometimes they need help with their ideas/artwork, so they get help from peers, teacher, books, online. They do some research, conference with some people and bring that to their work–apply.  They finish their artwork and can reflect on it–understand.  They move on to another artwork, thinking about what has worked before, learning from mistakes, using learned techniques/materials again–remembering.  Finally, the cycle starts again.

While this is a crude and elementary example of how the “Flipped Bloom’s” works, it does work in a TAB/CBE classroom. Wouldn’t you agree?