You may have heard the term \u201cBloom\u2019s Taxonomy of Verbs\u201d and while it may sound like a fun skit from the days of Sesame Street, it is actually a tool for helping the course stay aligned and to write your own module outcomes so as to ensure your assigned work for learners is of value.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Time to think about verbs-no don\u2019t run! You won\u2019t have to diagram sentences like in 7th grade English. But verbs help formulate course outcomes. Everything a student does is an action. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Take a look at these course outcomes for 478: Leadership and Management in Health Care. <\/strong>Every single outcome begins with a verb: <\/p>\n\n\n\n In this class, learners will be discussing, developing, exploring, and evaluating, and these skills exist on a compendium of ability, growth, and maturity <\/p>\n\n\n\n New nursing students do not analyze. But they are discovering, observing, naming, sorting, and then practicing recalling that information. As learners progress, they start to recognize patterns, their recall of information gets stronger, and eventually (and excitingly) they begin to use old concepts to create new ideas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This progression exists in a condensed version in your class. If say, you are introducing pathophysiology to a nursing student that has never taken a patho class, they are not going to jump straight into assessment, analysis, and providing solutions for a patient. They will start by naming, sorting, coding, and memorizing language to lay the foundation of what they need to know later on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, this is where Bloom\u2019s taxonomy starts to come into play. It would make a lot of sense that module outcomes, especially in the first few weeks, stay in the lower end of the scale of Bloom\u2019s taxonomy of verbs. As your class continues, those module outcomes will start to move up the scale. Or for more advanced graduate level courses you begin in the middle of Bloom\u2019s taxonomy, with the goal of having students reach the very top of the scale. This is useful for your formative assessments (smaller activities\/quizzes\/exercises) and your large flagship Big projects known as summative assessments. Formative assessments tend to stay lower in Bloom\u2019s taxonomy, while summative assessments tend to focus on the higher level ones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many, many MANY lists of Bloom\u2019s taxonomy of verbs to help you create outcomes, and can also help you make sure your formative and summative assessments align with those outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here is a great PDF from Utica.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s been scant research on the use of Bloom\u2019s Taxonomy within nursing education. Interestingly, the results have been mixed. Some feel that Bloom\u2019s Taxonomy does not adequately address the complexity of patient experience and care, and that there may be other ways to determine measurable learning outcomes. There is also some research that indicates that alignment does not increase cognitive learning.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n What may be useful however, is that having clearly defined module outcomes that outline course outcomes, will help your course meet AACN essentials. Here is a great blog post talking about just that at The Elevated NP: Empowering NP Educators to Teach, Lead, and Thrive.\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n With all of that being said, take a deep breath and don\u2019t get too hung up on verb usage, outcomes, and alignment. It can get overwhelming and it might derail you from creating something that feels exciting for yourself and for students. The OLTS Team can help you get started with some mapping and as you start to work on building out a new course, the wording for the outcomes will become more clear. Sometimes reverse engineering them is a perfectly acceptable way to get them done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Happy course-building! May your canvas login always work, your VCU Laptop stay at full battery, and Rodney the Ram sends you good tidings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Research: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dabney, B. W., & Eid, F. (2024). Comparing educational frameworks: Unpacking differences between Fink’s and Bloom’s taxonomies in nursing education.<\/a> Teaching and Learning in Nursing<\/em>, 19<\/em>(4), 347\u2013350.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jia Z, Balinas JM. Teaching Strategies in Psychiatric Nursing Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.<\/a> Cureus. 2024 Apr 7;16(4):e57759. doi: 10.7759\/cureus.57759. PMID: 38590977; PMCID: PMC11000043.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Su, W. M., Osisek, P. J., & Starnes, B. (2005). Using the revised Bloom’s taxonomy in the clinical laboratory: Thinking skills involved in diagnostic reasoning.<\/a> Nurse Educator<\/em>, 30<\/em>(3), 117\u2013122.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Image source: Menu, Sethi Bloom\u2019s Taxonomy of Objectives. <\/a>OER Resources. Creative Commons License<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What the heck are COs vs MOs? And why does they matter?\u00a0 Well, you\u2019ve already encountered COs-the acronym stands for Course Outcomes and they are on the short syllabi of the SON Courses you are assigned to teach. You\u2019ve probably also heard them as Learning Outcomes, Course Learning Objectives, and a couple of different variations-they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2465,"featured_media":9991,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,1],"tags":[16,17],"class_list":["post-9986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-assessment-and-measurement","category-learning-objectives","category-uncategorized","tag-education","tag-faculty-development-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2465"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9986"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9996,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9986\/revisions\/9996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":9867,"date":"2026-09-09T19:33:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T19:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/?p=9867"},"modified":"2026-09-09T19:33:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T19:33:02","slug":"aacn-memberships-for-son-faculty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/2026\/09\/09\/aacn-memberships-for-son-faculty\/","title":{"rendered":"AACN Memberships for SON Faculty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Did you know that VCU SON Faculty may be eligible for AACN Memberships? Here are some of the benefits included: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Contact Dina Belic<\/a> via email for more information about AACN memberships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Did you know that VCU SON Faculty may be eligible for AACN Memberships? Here are some of the benefits included: Contact Dina Belic via email for more information about AACN memberships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2465,"featured_media":9873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,55,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-assessment-and-measurement","category-professional-development","category-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2465"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9867"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9874,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9867\/revisions\/9874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":9854,"date":"2026-09-03T18:29:38","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T18:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/?p=9854"},"modified":"2026-09-03T18:31:54","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T18:31:54","slug":"scaffolding-assignments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/2026\/09\/03\/scaffolding-assignments\/","title":{"rendered":"Scaffolding Assignments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n There has been a lot of chatter lately about AI, education, and forming \u201cuncheatable assessments\u201d or \u201cAI-resistant\u201d assessments. While cheating has existed long before college students had their own private dial-up internet, AI has posed new challenges in creating educational content that actually assesses and develops learner competencies and cognition.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the answers that often comes up in these discussions is the scaffolded assignment. Many educators already create scaffolded assignments, whether they know it or not. It simply means breaking up a larger assignment into smaller sections throughout a course. A community health assessment for example, might start with a needs assessment survey, then a review of relevant literature with a bibliography, an outline, various methods of data collection, a synthesis of results, a plan of implementation for a solution, and a final presentation. There are infinite variations of this, and the ingenuity which educators have used scaffolded assignments have yielded great results-research generally shows that scaffolding assignments improves student performance, cognitive development, and motivation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, past the first glance the story is of course a little more complicated. Scaffolding assignments is a learning modality based on a learner\u2019s \u201czone of proximal development\u201d (ZPD), a term that refers to skills or content that is just out of a learner\u2019s reach to complete on their own, but with the right support would be able to achieve and master. Support includes learning materials and most importantly, instructor feedback.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n When thinking about ZPD, this creates a new set of parameters to think about when creating scaffolded assignments. It is not just about breaking apart a large project into smaller tasks, it also involves formulating assignments that assists learning so that neural pathways are created for long-term memory, rather than short-term working memory. Dr. Leo Van Lier in his seminal book Interaction in the Language Curriculum: Awareness, Autonomy and Authenticity <\/em>developed six principles for scaffolding assignments: <\/p>\n\n\n\n So the original focus for scaffolded assignments was more intentional than simply breaking down a final project into smaller tasks. It\u2019s really about instructor\/student engagement, safety in experimentation, and the goal of a learner being able to complete the project on their own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The effects of scaffolding assignments to minimize AI-use have largely not been studied. So while it is often positioned as one of the main solutions to AI over-reliance, the technique and the technology still do not have conclusive results. Scaffolding is also considered controversial in some higher education spaces as not demonstrating an improvement in writing skills, and studies have shown that scaffolding makes great improvements in meta-cognitive domains, and less in affective and cognitive domains. In other words, students learn much more about how to self-reflect on how they learn and what works best for them in learning, and less improvements in memorization, problem-solving, and motivation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For more information check out: <\/p>\n\n\n\n There has been a lot of chatter lately about AI, education, and forming \u201cuncheatable assessments\u201d or \u201cAI-resistant\u201d assessments. While cheating has existed long before college students had their own private dial-up internet, AI has posed new challenges in creating educational content that actually assesses and develops learner competencies and cognition.\u00a0 One of the answers that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2465,"featured_media":9855,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-assessment-and-measurement","category-learner-engagement","category-learner-support"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2465"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9854"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9858,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9854\/revisions\/9858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":9848,"date":"2026-09-03T12:02:49","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T12:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/?p=9848"},"modified":"2026-09-10T18:47:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T18:47:26","slug":"course-design-feedback-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/2026\/09\/03\/course-design-feedback-form\/","title":{"rendered":"Course Design Feedback Form"},"content":{"rendered":"\n It is the beginning of the semester and you went through your course before it launched and thought you found all of the issues that students might encounter. Inevitably, there will be items missed or issues that pop up that you didn’t anticipate. The Online Learning and Teaching Support Team (OLTS) has you covered!<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are launching a Course Design Feedback Form that will be located in the “Faculty Only” module of your Canvas course. Review the video below to see how you can locate the form and add an entry to be sure that the next time the course is launched the issue will be rectified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/nursingeducation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/246\/2026\/09\/image.jpeg\")
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