“Since you’re college teachers, none of your course objectives should be at the first level of the Taxonomy.”
The consultant’s casual statement stunned most of us. Since our community college was up for accreditation, we were trying to get our proverbial ducks in a row. We knew that assessment was a major issue for accreditation, and we’d paid an experienced consultant to provide us with assistance. Assessment, we were told, involves objectives. The objectives need to tie into measurable outcomes. Those outcomes need to be expressed in verb-first propositions about student behavior. Those behaviors need to reflect Bloom’s Taxonomy. The lowest level of the Taxonomy—beneath our concern: Knowledge.
Something seemed horribly wrong, and so I ventured into alien territory, the world of education. The fact that I’ve taught 200 sections of college-level philosophy did not prepare me for what
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