Building Blocks

It seems natural to think of knowledge in terms of building blocks.

We learn facts and information.

This forms the foundations of our thought.

As we grow older, we learn more, resulting in knowledge that is wider, deeper, and broader.

Understanding feels a little different.

Seeing it as building blocks is not so easy.

Perhaps it doesn’t have that same sense of discreteness to it as knowledge seems to possess.

When we know something, we know it.

There is our knowledge. It can be boxed off and specified.

• 1066
• Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain
• 6 x 7 = 42

Understanding is more applied, more continuous.

To say we understand something means we know it, and we know about it.

The definition is not as clear-cut.

There is more room for interpretation – literally as well as figuratively.

When it comes to teaching though, it can at times be helpful for us to imagine understanding as a set of building blocks in a similar vein to knowledge.

We start to see understanding as a series of separate elements that can be set apart, viewed in isolation, and worked on by learners.

How can this help us in our planning?

This approach can help us plan activities and lesson segments that focus on distinct aspects of understanding.

The different building blocks to which I have just alluded.

Now, there is a qualification to add.

I am not saying that understanding definitely is made up of a set of separate blocks.

This seems unlikely. And to come to a tentative answer on the topic would require a great deal more work.

Rather, I am saying that it can be useful for us as teachers to imagine understanding in this way.

To think about it like this, at times, and to use that thinking as a shortcut.

Why?

Because it gives us a way to break down a large and potentially impenetrable idea (understanding) into a series of elements we can put to practical use.

Have you guessed the rest of my argument?

Here it is.

Bloom’s Taxonomy does this for us.

By dividing thought up into six categories (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation), it gives us a way to see understanding as a series of blocks that can be placed, one after the other.

Discrete stages.

Steps a learner climbs in pursuit of mastery.

Another way to think about this is with the metaphor of building a house.

Coming to understand ideas and information is a bit like building a house from the ground up.

We lay foundations, add to these, and keep going until we are finished.

To build the house, we delineate.

Go step-by-step.

We have to.

When the house is built, we no longer see the processes.

Just the house.

The thing in its entirety.

This is how we can view our learners’ understanding when applying the taxonomy to our planning.

For example, in a particular lesson we might:

• Start off by having learners learn new information and then answer questions about it (knowledge and comprehension, levels 1 and 2 of the taxonomy).
• Before going on to apply it to a set of problems and then analyse the results (application and analysis, levels 3 and 4 of the taxonomy).
• Then finally, in the last section of the lesson, we might ask them to assess the information using criteria that we specify (level 6 of the taxonomy, evaluation).

Looking at this exemplar through the building blocks approach, we can imagine that each subsequent activity or lesson segment, all of which are based on an upwards movement through the taxonomy, is an additional building block of understanding laid down for the benefit of our learners.

Personally, I find this approach helpful.

It does not mean I fundamentally believe understanding consists of a series of discrete blocks.

What it does mean though, is that I find this way of thinking a useful practical model through which to build pace, challenge, and progress into lessons.

All of which is yet another reason Bloom’s Taxonomy is such an effective tool.