Create Rigorous Lessons Using Psychomotor Domain
Bloom's Taxonomy Helps with Including Rigor in the Curriculum
Jun 25, 2009
Many teachers find themselves searching for ways to include more rigor in classroom lessons. Sometimes it is as easy as enhancing an existing activity or project so it challenges students conceptually or emotionally. Other times it may require adding a new lesson or rewriting a unit to include a long-term project.
Bloom's taxonomy provides a familiar structure from which to start adding more rigor. The cognitive and affective domains align easily with the needs of rigor since they respectively relate to conceptually and emotionally challenging lessons. The psychomotor domain can also provide questions that can analyze curricula for rigor.
Categories from the Psychomotor Domain
One difficulty with using the psychomotor domain from Bloom's taxonomy is that the committee involved with creating the structure for the cognitive and affective domains did not provide one for psychomotor. Don Clark provides an synopsis of three popular versions of the psychomotor domain as written by E. J. Simpson, H. R. Dave, and A. J. Harrow. Dave's version will be used here to show connections to rigor.
Dave's interpretation of the psychomotor domain is divided into five categories. These categories start with the most basic skills and become more rigorous. The five categories are:
- Imitation: being able to copy someone else's work or movements
- Manipulation: following instructions or memory to recreate a task
- Precision: perform or demonstrate a task with minimal errors or assistance
- Articulation: combine different tasks to develop a unique solution
- Naturalization: automated, unconscious repetition of activities that show mastery of involved skills
Questions That Help Develop Rigorous Lessons
The first three categories in the psychomotor domain, imitation, manipulation and precision, are not rigorous. They are concerned with skills that involve mimicking someone else's skills or abilities and with repetition until a skill becomes precise. Students need to be challenged conceptually for the skill to be rigorous.
Articulation and naturalization have rigorous qualities and can be the basis for questions that can assist with developing a rigorous lesson. Articulation can be considered the most rigorous of the psychomotor categories due to it's reliance on the ability to combine skills, whereas naturalization is the level at which the skills are so well known the student can act automatically with little thought of the skills necessary. The following questions are examples of how these two categories, particularly articulation, can help develop a rigorous lesson or activity:
- Are students asked to use basic skills to create a unique solution?
- Do students combine skills, such as research and presentation, to make a new product?
- Are students challenged to solve a problem with unusual materials, like build a tower from paper, but no tape or glue?
- Can students manage multiple stages of a project?
- Do students design and construct a solution, such as a bridge from toothpicks, with little or no suggestions?
Using questions developed from the psychomotor domain of Bloom’s taxonomy is a step towards exposing students to more rigor, but the skills developed need to be combined with emotionally and conceptually challenging material. Rigor is based on higher order thinking skills, and the psychomotor domain describes levels of physical skill that will assist students in the application of rigorous material.
References:
Bloom, B.S. and Krathwohl, D.R. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. New York, Longmans, Green, 1956.
Clark, D. R. (2009). Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains. Retrieved June 3, 2009 from Skagitwatershed .
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