Choosing Where to Place the Emphasis

The first lesson plan I ever did was at Camp Redwood; I was thirteen. As Leaders-In-Training (LITs) we were asked to lead one activity with our group each week. We were provided with a lesson plan template – more on this in a bit – which we completed and showed to the Leader we were assigned to before leading the activity with our group. They could provide advice, feedback, and encouragement. It was a great foundation for me when I became a Leader myself. We were provided the weekly schedule – which I’ve written about – but no more lesson plans. You kind of had to know how to construct one yourself. Thank goodness I did. 

In college I was an orientation leader and we would teach sessions to incoming students about degree requirements as well campus life. For years I ran training for employees and volunteers. But I didn’t see any of this, the camp stuff included, as truly teaching and learning until I was studying it and practicing it in the college environment. Slowly, the more I learned, the more I recognized teaching is something I’ve been doing for a very long time. It’s something I adore but I love it most in less formal environments. This gradual epiphany is part of why I knew homeschooling was going to be a good choice for my son and me.

I’m still in the preschool years so I won’t really know until I get there, but I plan to do unit study and I plan to design the majority of our curriculum myself. Why not? I’ve always loved it and I have some solid foundations as well as new knowledge I’m gaining all the time to support the process.

In fact, I recently realized I could blend a facet of teaching and learning I’ve long loved with some information that’s new to me, through my homeschool research and preparation. I’m excited to share with you how Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning and the 8 Great Smarts (or intelligences) can work together in planning curriculum for learners – I believe – of any age or environment; and especially for homeschoolers.

When I was studying teaching and learning, and when I was designing curriculum for college students, I fell in love with Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning. This website, from Vanderbilt University, has an excellent explanation of Bloom’s Taxonomy including a graphic to demonstrate the hierarchy. In brief, the taxonomy classifies different kinds of engagement a learner might use and distinguishes how some types of learning, like memorizing and comprehending, are foundational whereas other types of activities, like hypothesizing or inventing require deeper learning and critical thinking. Many of my peers and colleagues felt like the only learning activities of value were at the top of the hierarchy – I disagreed. I think there’s value within all six of the categories. For example, you can’t expect someone to design their blueprints or create a model of an airplane if they’ve never memorized the necessary parts of an aircraft and they haven’t taken time to understand the physics behind flight. We need all the parts. The categories are: knowledge (also often called remembering), comprehension (often called understanding), applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.

One of the coolest things educators have as a resource are lists of verbs associated with each category so as you’re writing out learning outcomes or directions for a specific lesson you can use the verbs to tap into the kind of engagement activity connected to a specific way of learning. I used them a lot when designing learning outcomes for my courses or even thinking through how I’d explain an in-class activity or the instructions for an assignment. I think they’re fabulous and when I decided to homeschool one of the first things I did was dig through all my old notes and files to find those lists of verbs I’d kept and collect them in my homeschool folder. A few months ago I started drafting out unit study plans and lesson plans and I included a space for which categories of the taxonomy I’d be targeting and the verbs I might use. I set it aside for a few months and I’m so glad I did because the book I just finished has added a new layer.

I just read 8 Great Smarts: Discover and Nurture Your Child’s Intelligences by Dr. Kathy Koch. It builds on Harvard researcher Howard Gardner’s eight intelligences which I’d heard of but had not yet had the opportunity to dive into deeply. You’ve likely heard of learning styles but this isn’t those. Instead, these are ways humans innately learn. It will come as no surprise different people tend to learn better, or perhaps lean into learning more, when engaging through a smart or intelligence that either comes more naturally or has been more nurtured. The smarts are not ranked globally, meaning it’s not better to be one kind of smart over another. But it is likely people have three or four they prefer or feel more strongly and a couple which are lower on their personal hierarchy. It doesn’t mean a person should only learn in ways aligned with their top smarts, in fact under the right conditions it can be really helpful to stretch a learner’s abilities by engaging in one of the smarts that comes less naturally. The 8 smarts are: Word Smart, Logic Smart, Picture Smart, Nature Smart, People Smart, Self Smart, Body Smart, and Music Smart. I highly recommend reading the book to understand these smarts because they are each complex.

I found the book fascinating as a former educator and as a parent, and honestly, just as a person trying to understand myself better. Especially because Dr. Koch’s approach is to truly encourage you to nurture the child you have, not the child with imagined you’d have or wish you had. This aligns closely with the Charlotte Mason concept that our children were designed by God and gifted to us to nurture but not to make them who we want them to be; we are charged as parents to support them as they become who they were always intended to be. It was helpful to me because as my son grows I’ve been noticing he has some strength areas I do not have and while I admire him, it causes me to feel apprehension about teaching him. This book helped me understand us both better and think through how I might lean into areas where we have overlapping smarts, boost him with some of the smarts I have that are stronger, and let him lead in areas where he has smarts I don’t naturally lean toward. It helped me think through designing lessons too. For example, if my son is struggling with a task like reading, I might design activities to tap into his strong body smart; maybe I’d write some words in chalk on the ground and we’d physically move around on them.  But when teaching something he has strong smarts in, like math, I might design activities that will stretch him and activate his less innate smarts; I might have us count the letters in the alphabet or in his name. 

Then, I had a really cool idea. What if I matched the smarts to different verbs associated with the learning in the taxonomy!? Then, when designing a unit or a lesson I would be able to decide which category of learning I’m hoping to activate and select verbs to direct him toward that outcome as well as deciding which smart I want to emphasize and teach through. What I love most about this is, I firmly believe, we are better teachers when we pull from many theories and philosophies. The blending of these two approaches can only strengthen them both. I was so excited.

For example, if I wanted to teach a Nature Smart kid to Remember the parts of a boat, I might write the outcomes of the lessons to say, “be able to recognize the hull, bow, stern, and starboard and port.” If I were teaching a unit on clouds to a Word Smart child I might write instructions for Analysis to say, “characterize the different types of clouds.” If I were trying to stretch a Self Smart kid toward more People Smarts I might nudge them in Evaluation by asking them to defend a position on whatever topic we’re studying. Or encourage a kid who doesn’t think they’re very Picture Smart by creating a comfortable space to Apply using illustration.

I’ve already worked to align those learning verbs with the smart(s) they emphasize. This is a list I may adjust over time – your feedback is welcome! – so I’ve made it a Google Sheet. It also helps because it’s a big list and this is easier to view and manipulate or copy. You are invited to email me for access (kat@kathrynwilhite.com). A .pdf version is pictured here.

I also have built this idea of blending the taxonomy categories with the eight smarts into my unit study plan and lesson plan template drafts. You can check those out here too.

I hope these can be helpful to you in creating something for your own home education or understanding your childrens’ learning needs. I encourage you to create your own tools but if you decide to use mine, please remember these are my ideas and I’m a humble stay-at-home mom. 

So, I said I’d come back to those LIT lesson plans. It excites me that after decades, professional experience and top notch education, the planning scheme I’m using isn’t that far off the lesson plans I used at thirteen. They’re certainly more detailed and advanced but the general tone and feel is the same. What are you doing? How long do you expect it to take? What’s the point? What do you need to make it happen? What  are you planning to do and say? It’s pretty cool to reflect and see something I did, as a volunteer, in my teen years, is so useful to educating my son. 

I feel really proud of these materials I’ve made and I’m excited to see how well they work in practice once we get going. I feel inspired now that they’re at my fingertips and I can’t wait to get going. 

Originally posted 5/16/23 on old website