The Zettelkasten Method of Note Taking Mirrors Most of the Levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy

Between zettels (the space where new ideas often occur) this morning I realized that there is a high correlation to Bloom’s Taxonomy and the refined methods of keeping a zettelkasten, particularly as delineated by Dr. Sönke Ahrens in his book How to Take Smart Notes. As a result, even if one’s primary goal isn’t writing or creating as framed by Ahrens’, the use of the system as a pedagogical tool can be highly effective for a variety of learning environments.

Recall briefly that Bloom’s Taxonomy levels can be summarized as: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.

Outlining the similarities

One needs to be able to generally understand an idea(s) to be able to write it down clearly in one’s own words. This is parallel to creating literature notes as one reads. Gaps in one’s understanding will be readily apparent when one realizes that they’re not able to explain an idea simply and clearly.

Regular work within a zettelkasten helps to reinforce memory of ideas for understanding, long term retention, and the ability to easily remember them. Many forms of zettelkasten software have functionality for direct spaced repetition if not dovetails for spaced repetition software like Anki or Mnemosyne.

Applying the knowledge to other situations happens almost naturally with the combinatorial creativity that occurs within a zettelkasten. Raymundus Llullus would be highly jealous here I think.

Analysis is heavily encouraged as one takes new information and actively links it to prior knowledge and ideas; this is also concurrent with the application of knowledge.

Being able to compare and contrast two ideas on separate cards is also part of the analysis portions of Bloom’s taxonomy which also leads into the evaluation phase. Is one idea better than another? How do they dovetail? How might they create new knowledge? Juxtaposed ideas cry out for evaluation.

Finally, as argued by Ahrens, one of the most important reasons for keeping a zettelkasten is to use it to generate or create new ideas and thoughts and then use the zettelkasten as a tool to synthesize them in articles, books, or other media in a clear and justified manner. 

Other examples?

I’m curious to hear if any educators have used the zettelkasten framing specifically for scaffolding the learning process for their students? There are some seeds of this in the social annotation space with tools like Diigo and Hypothes.is, but has anyone specifically brought the framing into their classes?

I’ve seen a few examples of people thinking in this direction and even @CalHistorian specifically framing things this way, but I’m curious to hear about other actual experiences in the field. 

The history of the recommendation and use of commonplace books in education is long and rich (Erasmus, Melanchthon, Agricola, et al.), until it began disappearing in the early 20th century. I’ve seen a few modern teachers suggesting commonplaces, but have yet to run across others suggesting zettelkasten until Ahrens’ book, which isn’t yet widespread, at least in the English speaking world. And even in Ahrens’ case, his framing is geared specifically to writing more so than general learning and education.

Featured image courtesy of Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching (CC BY 2.0

Replied to Note-taking: A Research Roundup by Jennifer GonzalezJennifer Gonzalez (Cult of Pedagogy)
A summary of 8 best practices in note-taking, straight from the research.
It’s been a few years since this was originally posted and there have been some interesting developments in note taking apps and software which have been shifting some of the focus in the space. The primary change is the popularization of the German idea of the Zettelkasten which grew out of the commonplace book tradition from antiquity and the early Renaissance.

The most detailed form of the idea can be found in Sönke Ahrens’ book How to Take Smart Notes, which also looks closely at much of the note taking and psychology related research over the past several decades. While he frames the method in terms of writing and creation as the end goal, much of the method dovetails with Bloom’s Taxonomy as I’ve outlined. It could also be framed as Cornell Notes with a greater focus on atomic notes that are highly linked and thereby integrating a student’s new knowledge with their prior knowledge.

I’d love to see more educators scaffolding the use of this note taking tool in their classes, especially in high school and undergraduate education.

Cross reference: https://boffosocko.com/tag/note-taking/

Replied to a tweet by Codex Editor (Twitter)
To break your literacy boundaries, try taking a look at Lynne Kelly‘s work on orality and memory (Knowledge and Power, Songlines, et al.). Duane Hamacher, et al. have a great new book out as well. And try Ong’s work on orality too. There are lots of non-literate tools for thought hiding out there.
Replied to Suggestion for blog-based social media by Mark EssienMark Essien (markessien.com)
Many of us write tens of thousands of words yearly. All those words are written on some corporate social media website, and they can wake up any day and ban your handle. When that happens, your entire collected works, which could represent a lifetime of thoughts are gone. We put so much effort into writing - we should not just make sure this writing is preserved - we should also ensure that we own it.
I love this idea. It’s the dream of many and the reality of a growing group. Some have mentioned that Micro.blog does this out of the box, but I’ll mention that I have some tools that allow me to do it outside of that. I use WordPress for my website, but it dovetails well with social readers like Aperture, Indigenous, and Together. Small standards and building blocks like Microformats, Webmention, Micropub, and Microsub glue it all together.

Here’s an overview of what some of it looks like: A Twitter of Our Own (short video) along with slides. Those with some technical expertise should be able to get this up and running for themselves.

If it’s your dream, I hope you look into the solutions and come join the growing community.

For those fleeing Twitter, know that I post everything on my personal website first and syndicate it to a number of places including Twitter and Mastodon.

Much of my short status updates cross post to @chrisaldrich@mastodon.social while everything can be found at the “Mastodon account” @chrisaldrich, which is really just my personal website pretending to be a Mastodon server.

If you want your own website that acts a lot like traditional social media I also recommend you try out micro.blog where you can follow me @chrisaldrich

If you have difficulty finding/reading my content wherever your new internet home is, let me know and I’ll see what I can do to help. I try to support a number of open standards to be read in many forms and formats.

Before you leave, do let me know where I might find and stay in touch with you, because it’s the friends and the people that make any of this worthwhile at all.

Replied to Open Educators on Mastodon by Clint LalondeClint Lalonde (EdTech Factotum)
It is great to see many people in my network again testing the Mastodon waters in the wake of the news of the sale of Twitter. Discovering and developing a new network can be difficult and is often a big barrier to moving to a new platform so to help get you started, here is a list of peo...
Thanks for this Clint!

I wish that Mastodon’s list functionality was easier to use, but this method works well too. I won’t say anything about the irony of using the OG social network of the blogosphere to spread this useful information. 😉

Replied to As I continue reading and sometimes re-posting ... by Jeremy CherfasJeremy Cherfas (Jeremy Cherfas)
As I continue reading and sometimes re-posting things written on this day, I've decided to do one more thing at the end of a session: go to a random site in the IndieWeb WebRing. Today, I found something that resonates down the years: how to organise the content of a weblog.
These are fascinating questions, though looking at them from various perspectives and imagined audiences over time scales makes them more intriguing. 

Most often we privilege the chronological time order because that’s how we ourselves live them, write them, and how much of our audience experiences them.

But consider looking at someone’s note collections or zettelkasten after they’re gone? One wouldn’t necessarily read them in physical order or even attempt to recreate them into time-based order. Instead they’d find an interesting topical heading, delve in and start following links around.

I’ve been thinking about this idea of “card index (or zettelkasten) as autobiography” for a bit now, though I’m yet to come to any final conclusions. (References and examples see also: https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=%22card+index+as+autobiography%22). 

I’ve also been looking at Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project which is based on a chunk of his (unfinished) zettelkasten notes which editors have gone through and published as books. There were many paths an editor could have taken to write such a book, and many of them that Benjamin himself may not have taken, but there it is at the end of the day, a book ostensibly similar to what Benjamin would have written because there it is in his own writing in his card index.

After his death, editors excerpted 330 index cards of Roland Barthes’ collection of 12,000+ about his reactions to the passing of his mother and published them in book form as a perceived “diary”. What if someone were to do this with your Tweets or status updates after your death?

Does this perspective change your ideas on time ordering, taxonomies, etc. and how people will think about what we wrote? 

I’ll come back perhaps after I’ve read Barthes’ The Death of the Author


Also in reply to: 

Replied to a thread by Mia (not her best work) and Zach Leatherman (Twitter)
I always circle back to the Lost Infrastructure chart here https://indieweb.org/lost_infrastructure and wonder:

  • in which boxes can the technology requirements be simplified for publishers and maintainers of individual websites but still allow for the broadest inter-operation?
  • which axes are missing?
  • which boxes need to be expanded with technology for better plurality?
Followed Chuck Grimmett (Chuck Grimmett)

I’m on the WordPress.com Special Projects Team at Automattic. When I’m not online, I prefer to be hiking, reading, or woodworking.

I blog about food and drink over at Cook Like Chuck. I used to work at Crash, eResources, and The Foundation for Economic Education.

My three favorite bands are Underworld, Tycho, and A Tribe Called Quest.

Around the web, you can generally find me with the username cagrimmett.

So much to love about Chuck Grimmett: interested in WordPress, Digital Gardens, woodworking, economics, ReadLists, a personal digital library… Need I go on?