It was a pleasant surprise to listen to Dr. McGuire’s presentation last week. For quite some time, I have been thinking about how to best “motivate” my students, and what is the most efficient way to enhance their learning. It just struck me that students may not know the various strategies for different learning, and led me to re-think about learning improvement. I think this goes well with our college’s movement towards gen ed as well. We talk about students’ learning skills and outcomes, but have we really thought about “how” to improve the learning outcomes?

This week, I shared Bloom’s taxonomy with my students, and found out that students’ expectations of learning were somewhat different than my own. My students and I had a good discussion on the terms on the taxonomy and I found out that how students define the term on the taxonomy was in fact the definition for another term on the taxonomy. We often take it for granted and make an assumption that our students know the terms used in assessment, but my discussion with students showed otherwise.

Dr. McGuire’s presentation was an eye-opening experience for me, and I will integrate some of the strategies to my future teaching.