Bloom's Taxonomy and Granello Article

        After reading Granello's (2011) article on the use and practicality of Bloom's Taxonomy on graduate level writing, it became apparent that mastering and comprehending material is not the main goal in higher-level writing. One main goal is to draw together ideas and research findings from several different sources, and to link them to themes and/or principles, that are understandable to others (Granello 2011). This article was able to further explain how important it is for achieving cognitively advanced thinking in research especially in writing literature reviews. Looking at my experience with literature reviews, this advanced level of thinking is quite difficult and appears to be a skill that I need to practice more by reviewing more research articles relevant to a particular topic, and looking at common themes that may exist.

        This past week my classmates and I were able to participate in a class peer editing review of our literature reviews for our group presentations. As a class, we were able to see the complexity of information that was accumulated for each review, and the different ways that groups synthesized information. The application of Bloom's Taxonomy really allowed me to see how our writings could be improved just by trying to reach a higher level of the taxonomy. Overall, groups appeared to reach the application branch of the taxonomy and they also showed signs of needs to improve to the synthesis level. It was difficult to provide suggestions on how to reach this level of thinking in each review, since it is not a familiar way for me to think cognitively. I could definitely appreciate the presentation of Bloom's taxonomy because it has opened my eyes to what is expected in graduate level writing assignments.

      Switching gears and looking at career development in post-secondary educational institutions in chapter thirteen, it was alarming to see that 54% of the respondents in the Gaullop study who attended college, reported that their current job did not allow them to fully utilize their skills learned in school (Brown, 2012). When I graduated from undergrad with a bachelor's of science degree in biology, my first job was working as a sales representative at a fitness center, selling gym memberships. Falling into that statistic made me realize how common it is for recent college graduates to end up in careers not as part of their major courses of study. Does this happen because of limited job availability in a particular field, or is it due to people finding other interests in other fields once school is over? Based on post-modern and modern theories, theses reasons can be analyzed and sought out in career counseling.

Brown, D.  (2012).  Career Development in Postsecondary Educational Institutions Career

Information, Career Counseling, and Career Development (10th ed., pp. 292-312).  New

York: Pearson Education, Inc.

Granello, D. H. (2001). Promoting Cognitive Complexity in Graduate Written Work: Using

Bloom's Taxonomy as a Pedagogical Tool to Improve Literature Reviews. Counselor

            Education & Supervision, 40, 292-307