Does Using Understanding by Design Mean You're "Teaching to the Test?"

by Kate Wolfe Maxlow

One of the questions I'm frequently asked in professional development sessions is: Does using Understanding by Design to plan for learning, with its emphasis on first looking at standards, then determining how you will assess whether students have "got it," and THEN planning the learning experiences to help them be successful--doesn't all that just mean that you're "teaching to the test?"

In short, yes. It does.

But wait! Don't march away in disgust yet!

The problem here is not actually the idea that your instruction should align with the way that you're going to assess learning; the problem is that too often, we don't approach assessment with a balanced framework. When we only think of assessments as multiple choice tests, or even multiple choice with an occasional Technology Enhanced Item (TEI) or essay thrown in for good measure, we're doing our students a disservice.

The majority of states use multiple choice and TEI items (with a smattering of essays here and there) because, quite simply, those are the easiest and cheapest to grade (essays, grated, take longer, and that's why they're not used nearly as often). And, when written well, multiple choice and TEI can get you pretty far up the Bloom's ladder--all the way to the Analyze level.

But what about the Evaluate and Create levels? We can't leave them out. Those are incredibly important skills not just for young people, but for everyone. And you can't get at those levels through traditional assessments.

That's one reason why Understanding by Design strongly emphasizes the use of performance assessments--of actually having students USE their learning in higher-level, authentic ways. And while several states are experimenting with performance assessments as an addition to or replacement for traditional standardized assessments, no one has quite yet figured out how to do performance assessments yet at a state level with the same cost and efficiency as the current multiple choice/TEI/occasional essay tests.

Where does that leave our schools? Well, certainly schools need to meet state and federal accreditation benchmarks. There's no doubt about that. But what we often see is that, believe it or not, focusing on test preparation doesn't provide quite the bang-for-your-buck that it used to. These days, as the rigor of the tests moves up, students need to have more hands-on experiences to think critically and creatively--both for their own good AND in order to score well on their assessments.

So what about those dirty words--"teaching to the test?" Well, if your test isn't simply lower-level multiple choice, but is instead a variety of some multiple choice, short answer, essay, and performance assessment, your learning experiences will look less like drill-and-kill flashcards and worksheets, and more like lessons in which students practice thinking critically and creatively. Yes, there still might be some use of flashcards (especially when there's particular knowledge that students need to be able to use fluently to be successful), and probably some lessons on testing strategies, but the key is that shouldn't be all there is.

And really, if you're not teaching so that your instruction is aligned with your assessments...either you're assessing something that you haven't taught (which isn't fair), or you're teaching without assessing...in which case, how will you know that the students "got it?"

The key there isn't to not "teach to the test." The key is to redefine what we mean by "test."

Kate Maxlow is the Professional Learning Coordinator at Hampton City Schools in Hampton, Virginia. She can be reached at kmaxlow@hampton.k12.va.us

Wide Awake Presentations: 3 Better Ways to Share Information Than Reading Your Slides

by Kate Wolfe Maxlow


You walk into a PD or a classroom and the first slides come up looking like this:

...and the presenter starts to read aloud every. Single. Bullet. Inwardly, everyone in the audience groans and inwardly dies a little, knowing that they're never going to get this hour of their lives back.

It doesn't matter whether you're a trainer doing professional development or a teacher making your way through the Crimean War--this is a rough way to cram information into your presentation.

What's worse, is that it's pretty darn ineffective.

When you have this much information on a slide and are just reading each bullet aloud to be able to check off that you "covered it," even the few brave souls that are actually listening probably aren't processing very much. Our short term memories only hold 7 +/- 2 pieces of information at a time and only for about 15 to 30 seconds before either discarding the information or moving it into longer-term memory. If the information doesn't seem important or immediately relevant, we dump it to make room for new information coming on-board.

So, what the heck do you do when you have a TON of material that you need introduce to your audience AND you want them to actually remember it?

Glad you asked. How about a little role-play?

Let's say that you're presenting Malcolm Knowles' 4 Principles of Andragogy about Adult Learners to your audience.

1. Adults need to be involved in the planning of the content.
2. Adults are most motivated to learn things that have immediate relevance to their job.
3. Adults are goal-oriented and need a specific reason for learning.
4. Adult learning is problem centered rather than content oriented.
5. Adults are self-directed and need to discover things for themselves with guidance when needed.

(Bowgren, L. & Severs, K. Differentiated professional development: Professional learning communities. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press (p. 20).

Your audience has never seen this information before and you want them to actually remember it. Resist that first inclination to copy and paste each principle into a separate bullet and read them all to your audience! Instead, try one of these methods that will cause participants to actually use and store the information, instead of it going in one ear and out the other:

1. Rate the Information
Goal: Participants determine what pieces of information are MOST important.

Ask participants: Of the five principles, which do YOU find most important? (Or, put these in order from MOST to LEAST important for you.) This causes the participants to not only read each piece of information, but compare and contrast them. You've suddenly moved from the Remember/Understand level of Bloom's cognitive domain taxonomy to the Analyze! (Ask them to justify and you can even get to Evaluate).

Note: Keep this quick, and emphasize that there are no right/wrong answers! You don't have to do a full group share-out (blerg, this can take forever and lose your audience's attention again); as long as people get to at least discuss with a partner, they'll feel heard (though you can always ask a few people to share out if they feel really passionately). You can also include some technology in here with something like Poll Everywhere that allows your audience to quickly see overall rankings (note: I still recommend having people talk to one another; the more collaboration, the more areas of the brain are being used, and the more likely they are to remember).

2. Relate the Information
Goal: Participants relate the information to something in their own lives.

Tell participants: Think of a story from your own life that either CONFIRMS or CONTRADICTS the principles. Think of this story and be ready to explain the story and WHY it confirms or contracts the principles to a partner in 45 seconds or less. (Give participants about 2-3 minutes to review the principles and then to think of their individual stories, and then have them turn and talk).

What this does is connect the information to the person's memories, therefore engaging more parts of the brain, creating new neural networks, and making it easier for the person to retrieve the information later. You've also given them a personal connection to the information.

3. Create with the Information
Goal: Participants USE the information in a new, creative, and preferably collaborative way.

Tell participants: Read the 5 principles of adult learning. Working with a partner or small group, create a basic sketch of your Dream Professional Development on a topic of your choice that would achieve each principle.

Depending on how much time you have for the concept, there are a few ways to share this out. 1) You can go old school and have folks write up their descriptions on chart paper, then do a gallery walk. 2) You can incorporate technology and have them explain brief descriptions on something like padlet, Google Classroom, or Flipgrid.




What other ideas do you have for how to share information in a presentation without boring the pants off your audience? We'd love to hear them!

What I Wish I'd Known About Bloom's Taxonomy From the Beginning

by Kate Wolfe Maxlow

If you're an educator who doesn't live under a rock, you've probably heard of Bloom's Taxonomy. But even Bloom himself said of his 1958 work, The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain, that it was "One of the most widely cited yet least read books on American education."

And truly, when I was first introduced to Bloom's Taxonomy it was through a neat little pyramidal chart like this one here. Sometimes it came with a more expansive chart full of verbs like this one that I
would then dutifully match up to my standards, muttering angrily under my breath...because how on earth can "construct" both be Apply and Create? What the heck kind of system was this?

And what impact did it really make on my teaching anyway? Did the benefit of unpacking a standard really justify the time it took to do so?

After working as a part of a curriculum department for several years now, I've come to the conclusion that the answer, like with most things, is: "Yes. With caveats." Because the more that I actually read Benjamin Bloom and the updated 2000 A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Education Objectives by Anderson and Krathwohl, the more I realize that I was missing certain key points when I was just looking at that handy dandy pyramid and verb chart--points that would have really made my unpacking of standards worthwhile.


1. Bloom always intended there to be other domains beyond the Cognitive.

While Bloom started with the Cognitive domain as a way to combat the then-popular drill-and-kill style of education (which, if you're a fan of educational history, you know is one half of the pendulum that constantly swings back and forth between "deeper understanding" and "back to basic facts"), he always meant there to also be an Affective Domain, or the way that people feel about their learning, and the Psychomotor Domain, which encompasses the ability to physically move through the world.

In other words, Bloom never wanted students to just know that graduated cylinders can measure the volume of liquids (Remember or Understand level, depending on how you teach it), he also wanted them to appreciate the value of accurate measurements (Affective Domain) and have the physical abilities to actually, you know, measure some liquids in a graduated cylinder (Psychomotor Domain).

Rarely in education today do we discuss the Affective and Psychomotor Domain, and I think it's often to the detriment of our students. If we pay attention to the Affective Domain, we realize that in addition to getting students to read, we need to help them learn to love and appreciate reading. If we pay attention to the Psychomotor Domain, we realize that sitting in desks for six hours a day in order to wade through swaths of curriculum prevents our students from developing an important mind-body relationship that will keep them active and healthy for years to come.

If you want a little light reading for your next beach vacation, click here to read more about the Affective and Psychomotor Domains.


2. The goal is not to always reach the highest level of the taxonomy. ("Create" under the Anderson and Krathwohl revised version)

Remember the Teapot Dome Scandal? Chances are that unless you teach American History, while you might remember studying it, and even have a vague recollection of what it was, you're murky on the specific details that you had to learn to pass that American History test back in high school.

So, if you don't have the ability to Create a documentary on the Teapot Dome scandal, is that holding you back in life? Probably not.

In other words, it's really okay if students have a "good enough" Understanding of some standards. We don't have to pull our hair out constantly to get to the Create level.

But that being said...


3. In real life, the taxonomy is not always a straight-line hierarchy like you see in the nifty graphics.

Dr. Christopher Gareis, Professor of Educational Leadership at The College of William and Mary, explains that we "oftentimes reach a deeper level of Understanding [the second level of Bloom's Taxonomy] when we engage in Analyzing, Evaluating, or Creating [the highest levels of Bloom's Taxonomy]. In other words, human cognition does not always move sequentially from knowledge to understanding and so forth. Human cognition oftentimes moves rapidly between and among levels of cognition, even if imperfectly." 

Let's go back to the Teapot Dome Scandal for a minute. According to History.com, "In 1920, Warren G. Harding, a senator and Ohio newspaper publisher, won a long-shot bid for the White House with the financial backing of oilmen who were promised oil-friendly cabinet picks in return."

As a student, certainly I can memorize that piece of information, but in order to really Understand the role of corruption in politics, I might first have to spend some time at the Evaluate level, such as by working through an assignment like: "Was it wrong for Harding to appoint Senator Albert Fall as Secretary of the Interior? Justify your answer using relevant historical facts and primary sources." Once I can Evaluate this particular historical event, I might be ready to Understand the bigger topic of political corruption and its impact on American citizens.

Even so...


4. Be wary of an over-reliance on Bloom's Taxonomy--and especially on verb charts.

I'm not saying that verb charts are never helpful...just that they're not nearly as important as actually asking yourself, "What is this standard asking students to DO with what they need to know?" It's so easy to pull out the chart, find a verb under a particular taxonomy level, and go along your merry way without actually doing anything to inform your instruction.

But the point of Bloom's Cognitive Taxonomy is to ensure that you're aligning your instruction and assessment with the curriculum, so that makes it imperative to actually think about what the standard is asking. Whether the standard is at the Analyze or Evaluate level is actually less important than ensuring that your instruction is aligned with what the curriculum's intended learning outcomes and how those outcomes will be assessed. Bloom's Taxonomy is just one framework that gives us the language to do a better job at reaching that alignment.

And guess what?  Even Benjamin Bloom himself recognized the limitations of his taxonomy, noting that "Ideally each major field should have its own taxonomy in its own language...with possible new categories, combinations of categories and omitting categories as appropriate."

So why does our division use Bloom's? Well, as educators, it gives us one common language so that we can learn together and collaborate. As I usually say in PD sessions, "It's a good enough system for every discipline, even if it's not perfect for any one discipline."

(P.S., if you really want a verb chart, the best one I've found is in Anderson and Krathwohl's A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Education Objectives. It breaks down each level of Bloom's taxonomy into sub-categories that make it easier to understand the overall category, but if you don't want to buy the whole book, this chart gets you part of the way there.)