1 Prepare Your Expectations

This course is an introductory level science course, which typically means the students are expected to remember, understand, apply, and at times analyze the concepts covered in the course. These expectations correspond to the first four levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, a tool for categorizing the process of thinking and learning, a.k.a cognition. Further into your academic timeline you will take courses with higher numbers and greater focus on the upper levels. However, to better prepare you for success in a complex world, this course may also use guided projects to expose you to the higher level cognitive processes.

 

This diagram shows a triangle broken into equally thick horizontal sections, creating a large area section on the bottom moving up to successively smaller area sections toward the top. The sections are labeled with the cognitive levels of Bloom's Taxonomy and descriptions of the labels. From top to bottom the sections are: remember (recall facts and basic concepts), understand (explain ideas or concepts), apply (use information in new situations), analyze (draw connections among ideas), evaluate (justify a stand or decision), create (produce new or original work).
This course focuses on the lower portion Bloom’s Taxonomy, but at times you will have the opportunity to analyze, evaluate, and create. Be sure to use your instructor as a resource while working at any cognitive level.

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The following table uses the concept of conservation of energy to illustrate of how students might be expected to participate in each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy within an introductory physics course.

The first column of a table contains the same color-coded labels as the blooms taxonomy triangle. Example situations are described in the second column. From top to bottom: Remember: Memorize a small number of basic physics principles or laws, such as the principle of conservation of energy. Understand: Explain how conservation of energy puts limits on what your body can do physically. Apply: use the principle of conservation of energy to figure out how fast you would be moving after falling from a two story building. Analyze: Use conservation of energy to distinguish between plausible and implausible results. Do experiments in the lab to test the principle of conservation energy. Evaluate: Use conservation of energy to evaluate the likelihood of truth behind claims made by various diet and exercise plans. Create: Design and construct models of sections of the human musculoskeletal system and use conservation of energy to predict how they will behave.
Connection of cognitive levels to various actions performed in this course.

Reinforcement Exercises

 

  1. "Blooms Taxonomy" by Vanderbilt Center for Teaching and Learning is licensed under CC BY 4.0 ↵
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Body Physics 2.0 Copyright © by Lawrence Davis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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