Wasting Time

A few weeks ago we had a Professional Development Day (PDD) at my school. The topic: higher order questions. The purpose of the activities to (once again) tell us about higher order thinking: analysis, evaluation & synthesis. Ironically, the workshop itself only covered the lower levels of thinking: knowledge, comprehension & application. By now you must be wondering what we were doing in this workshop. This was the agenda. The facilitator reviewed (for the hundredth time) Bloom's taxonomy, which is the breakdown of the aforementioned six levels: the lower levels- knowledge, understanding, application & the higher levels-analysis, evaluation and synthesis. Then we were divided into six groups. Each group started at one of the six levels. As a group we were supposed to generate as many words as we could associated with that level of understanding. A simple recall and regurgitation of information. Incidentally, that would fall into the "knowledge" level in Bloom's Taxonomy, the lowest level.

We have been given this information time and again, it has not changed in any way. The administration's objective is to get us (the teachers) to ask these higher order questions, to stimulate higher order thinking among our students. But if that is their objective why not use my time effectively? Give me a chance to sit down with my colleagues (the third to fifth grade math teachers) and allow us to look at the curriculum and actually generate a list of higher order questions. Interestingly enough, giving us an opportunity like that would give us a chance to exercise our higher order thinking skills. In addition, we would have left the workshop with something we could take back to the classroom and use. When will my time be as valuable to them as it is to me?