Planning well-balanced Courses¶

If you design a longer course, you probably not only want to cover a range of topics, but also have a balanced mix of objectives. In this chapter, you learn about Blooms Taxonomy, a powerful model to organize a larger set of learning goals. looms Taxonomy categorizes learning goals into a hierarchy according to the activities participants perform. These activities range from basic to more complex activities over six levels:

Applied to a lesson on for loops, you could formulate the following goals:

level	activity	example goal
1	reproduce	identify correct syntax of a for loop
2	comprehend	explain a for loop drawing multiple squares
3	apply	write a for loop drawing squares in different colors
4	analyze	review different implementations of loops
5	synthesize	refactor repetitive code using a loop
6	evaluate	discuss advantages and disadvantages of for over while

Ideally, a course has a mixture of activities. As the pyramid in the figure indicates, the majority of goals in a course should be on levels 1 + 2, a smaller number on levels 3 + 4, and a few on levels 5 + 6.

Blooms taxonomy helps you to focus less on content and more towards practical skills programmers need. In the table below, you find verbs that you can use to create activities.

reproduce	comprehend	apply	analyze	synthesize	evaluate
define	describe	implement	debug	plan	advocate
identify	explain	execute	compare	design	defend
enumerate	draw	calculate	differentiate	plan	recommend
name	illustrate	estimate	examine	refactor	judge
recognize	classify	measure	investigate	organize	assess
quiz	summarize	demonstrate	test	discuss	suggest

You will quickly notice that some topics are more apt for one or other type of activity. Also, you could make an activity on each level more or less difficult. So, by combining topics, activities and difficulty, you have practically an infinite number of goals for a lesson.