"Casey's Journalism Class Description" and Paula's Taxonomy Table

I think most of the assessment activities in the Casey journalism class could be converted to the online environment. Most require reading and discussion which could get time consuming and make a student feel somewhat isolated if they were doing all the activities on their own. I would suggest using some groups of students to make learning more enjoyable. Groups also help in the construction of new knowledge.

Please follow this link to the "Casey's Journalism Class" article in pdf form and my "Taxonomy of Assessment" as related to the article:

Paula's Taxonomy Chart


Further thoughts on Learning as related to Bloom's Taxonomy:
In the article Adapting Online Education to Different Learning Styles, four stages of learning are discussed: “1) exposure stage; 2) guided learning stage; 3) independent stage; and 4) Mastery Stage.” I see a relationship between these stages and progressing upwards in Bloom’s Taxonomy. They also go on to state that “students learn 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, 50% of what they see and hear, 70% of what they say, and 90% of what they say and do”.

To offer a higher level assessment in an online class, I would have students explore “truth in journalism” by composing questions related to the 6-point Code of Ethics for Journalists and have the student interview a working journalist. By composing the questions, they would have a good understanding of the Code and would also hear the journalist’s viewpoints first-hand. The interview could be recorded either by hand or with a microphone or video camera. The student would then be have a choice of how to present the interview by either written text posted to a Blog, played as an audio podcast, or published as an e-video. The student would hopefully be working at the top three levels of Bloom’s through the retelling of the interview.

There is an interesting observation in the article Elevating Creation in Bloom’s Taxonomy in lesson design, that I feel relates to having the students conduct an interview. According to the article “Instead of merely ‘reading back,’ students should ‘retell’ and ‘remix.’ Adding their own ideas and connections to the ‘facts’ of the curriculum should be a hallmark of their knowledge products. At the heart of this process is the teacher, who asks questions which challenge STUDENTS TO ASK questions– rather than asking questions which have a predefined, specific answer.”

Reference:
Adapting Online Education to Different Learning Styles. Retrieved from: http://realaudio.rice.edu/ecot/ust/bied5336/session%20i/On-Line%20Learning.pdf
Elevating Creation in Bloom’s Taxonomy in lesson design Retrieved from: http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2007/01/18/elevating-creation-in-blooms-taxonomy-in-lesson-design/