Inverting Bloom’s Taxonomy: The Role of Affective Responses in Teaching and Learning

  • Robert C. Lagueux Columbia College Chicago
Keywords: Bloom's taxonomy, student emotion, student affect, pedagogy

Abstract

The role that affective responses play in student learning has long been known, but many music history teachers are reluctant to incorporate emotional engagement into their pedagogy for fear that it is too “soft” a classroom goal. Recent research in the brain sciences, however, now offers us a physiological explanation for the role of affective responses in student learning, making clear that teachers should place emotion at the center of their teaching practice. This article proposes that teachers purposefully reunite the cognitive with the affective, offering a re-envisioned version of Bloom’s Taxonomy as one model. After examining the ways that students’ and teachers’ affective responses contribute to cognitive engagement with course material, some concrete strategies for incorporating affective responses into the music history classroom are proposed.

Author Biography

Robert C. Lagueux, Columbia College Chicago

Robert Lagueux (PhD 2004, Yale University) is Director of the First-Year Seminar program at Columbia College Chicago. His research interests include medieval liturgy and drama and teaching and learning theory. He is spending the 2012–13 academic year as a Fulbright scholar at City University of Hong Kong, helping to design and implement a new general education curriculum.

Published
2012-10-07
Section
Articles