Intro

When you're stuck in tutorial hell, the right answer is not to just keep on going. Developers need a real way to measure growth in a coding skill. Thanks to the work of teachers, and educators we can identify growth. We can be purposeful about the way we learn, so to maximize growth and minimize time needed to master the skill. Learning hard things isn't new. Educators have been teaching tough topics since the dawn of education.

If you are new to code or you are leading a team of junior developers, everyone could use a marker to measure progress. Understanding what actionable steps can take you from zero to mastery will help you reach success sooner rather than later.

Bloom's taxonomy is a well respected system of classification taught in every college of education across America. Simply put, Bloom's taxonomy is a tool for teachers to identify which activities to best support student's growth.

As a blog post series, I will be diving into Bloom's taxonomy for real world application for learning a new technical skill. Anyone should be able to use this blog post series for any technical skill and see growth in their understanding. Seems like a lofty goal for a blog, but Bloom's Taxonomy has been used for many decades. Bloom's taxonomy can be used by anyone learning highly technical skills.

Articles

In the Articles section, I will summarize one to three high quality reading on the topic of Bloom's taxonomy as it relates to computer science education.

Actionable Steps

In this section I will bullet some tasks anyone could work on to grow and show their understanding. An example of a deliverable could be summarize a video tutorial or completing a coding challenge. I will provide some PDF templates to help you get started.

Actionable Steps are meant to get you started working quickly. Feel free to make up your own action items. If you do, please share links to what you have built or learned in the comments below.

High Quality Learning Materials

Sometimes Bloom's taxonomy can be seen in learning materials online today. When I find good learning materials, I will share them with you. I will also give information on why I believe it is a good tool to learn from.

Final Mentions

Each blog post follow the same format: Intro, Academic Articles, Actionable Steps, High Quality Learning Materials, and Final Mentions. The blog posts in this series will keep to these sections.

My goal for writing this series is to help anyone easily apply Blooms taxonomy in a straight forward way and for readers to feel a sense of growth in their learning.

Image source: Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching (Click here for link to image) / (Click here for link to image license)