True confession time: I’ve been reading about teaching and learning theory for a good while. Always at an amateur level, and never with the rigor the enterprise unarguably deserves. I do not think I have a level of exposure to the pedagogical literature that is atypically inadequate compared with many in the legal academy. But I’d never spent much time or thought on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives until just recently. It’s fascinating.
For those in ADR, this is the equivalent of someone who teaches Negotiation coming along and saying, “I’ve just decided to spend a little time reading Thomas Schelling, and it’s interesting.” Or Howard Raiffa. Or Mary Parker Follett. Or Lon Fuller. (Or I suppose in another decade or two, Roger Fisher or Frank Sander or …).
Hence the confession. But just on the off chance that I might not be the only person out there who has spent inadequate time in this arena…
Easy to digest information here, here, and here.
There’s no shortage of critique, updating, challenging, alternative frameworks, etc., just as one would expect of a framework that has been around for 60 years. But then, the fact that it continues to be the focus of such responses (rather than simply being ignored) is probably indicative of something as well.
Happy teaching, all.
MM
