Bloom's and Marzano's Nine...are they effective?

The answer to the question in the title is: YES! Bloom's Taxonomy and Marzano's Nine Essential Strategies have become vital roles in successful educational experiences! This week, I really took the time to evaluate both. My digging into some of my activities and lesson plans that I created for my 7th graders, I was able to visualize how well I'm using the revised Bloom's Taxonomy with Digital Bloom's as well as Marzano's Nine Essential Strategies. Below is a link to this visualization:

Digital Bloom's Integration

In addition to looking at activities, I also took a look at one of my lessons that I completely revised to integrate technology into the new lesson. Below is a link to that revision as well as an evaluation of my use of Marzano and Bloom's:

Evaluation & Integration of Bloom's in a Lesson

Due to this new found knowledge on Bloom's Taxonomy and Marzano's Nine has really changed my designing of lesson plans. I like how each gives me some guidelines and questions to ask myself. For instance, in my old design of my lesson on the introduction to Circulatory System, I used the old Bloom's Taxonomy. Now, by integrating technology into the lesson, I was able to really update my objectives to include revised Bloom's and Digital Bloom's!! This update was fairly easy to do, and my students will have a much more purposeful lesson. So, I do plan to do this will all my curriculum objectives.
I'm currently in the process of designing a blog and wikispace for my students to use next year. By including these things, I will be able to meet my science standards, NETS standards for teachers and students, as well as include 21st Century Learning skills with Digital Bloom's and Marzano's Nine Essential Strategies. In addition to these updates, I'm also in the process of revising many of my old lessons to include technology components. Of course, I will be creating lessons that are using the appropriate use of technology, so I can still incorporate other skills as well. It is important to remember that technology is used to enhance the curricula, not to replace me as the teacher. By using Marzano's strategies and the revised Bloom's Taxonomy, I will be able to make sure that I incorporate everything into my classroom, not just technology.

As a way to improve my lessons right now, I've changed my essential questions and daily objectives to include verbiage of the newly revised bloom's taxonomy. Instead of nouns, I use verbs. For instance, the objective of the day is: Students will evaluate information from fast food menus to determine which restaurant is the healthiest.

As an educator, it is important to share new found knowledge with colleagues, so they may be able to enhance their teaching practices as well. A perfect way to do this is through professional development. If I were given time during professional development, I would be able to share all the information that I posted in my blogs as well as the bloom's integration matrix. Then, I would encourage the teachers to take some of their lesson plans and revise them to include revised bloom's taxonomy and digital bloom's. If I was unable to have time on a professional development day, I may talk to various colleagues, and show them my information in my blog. I've had pretty good luck talking to many colleagues about my new found technology integration "expertise." By communicating with them, I happen to know a few of my colleagues are taking advantage of using my protopage resources. Two science teachers at another middle school even used my Web Quest: Journey through the Digestive System! I even have a friend that is currently teaching science in Australia, and she is using tons of the resources. It is pretty remarkable that technology allows me the opportunity to talk to colleagues from other schools and help them enhance their teaching practices as well!

So, my next step is to add an area to my protopage on Bloom's Taxonomy and Marzano's Nine Essential Strategies. By doing this, it may help get the information across even easier that time on a professional development day. Keep watching for this new information!