Hierarchy of Cognitive Domain Learning Skills to Guide Activity Design, Classroom Facilitation, and Classroom Assessment
Abstract
Development of a complex set of life-long learning skills in the cognitive, social, and affective domains is an important goal of engineering education. This is complicated by the reality that learning skill development transcends the temporal and spatial boundaries of isolated courses (SCANS 1991). This work responds to the need for a shared language to promote and reinforce learning skill development between courses and across the curriculum.
The research question that motivated this work is whether greater specificity in learning skill definition than that prescribed by ABET Criteria 3 and 4 can be a useful tool for daily teaching/learning. This paper outlines the philosophy, organization, and application of a classification of learning skills within the cognitive domain. Over 90 distinct learning skills are grouped into skill clusters that fall within process areas aligned with Bloom's taxonomy. Learning skills within the classification apply from pre-college through graduate study. Candidate skills were inventoried from numerous literature sources and then validated, positioned, and refined through deliberations of an inter-disciplinary focus group. This paper includes a holistic rubric for defining, measuring, and elevating individual learning skills as well as discussion of how targeting specific skills can strengthen activity design, facilitation of learning, and classroom assessment.
About Publication
Journal
Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education, Salt Lake City, UT. 2004.
Authors
Beyerlein, S., D. Cordon, D. Davis, C. Leise, and D. Apple