Bloom's Taxonomy What is Bloom's Taxonomy?
Understanding that "taxonomy" and "classification" are synonymous helps dispel uneasiness with the term. Bloom's Taxonomy is a multi-tiered model of classifying thinking according to six cognitive levels of complexity. Throughout the years, the levels have often been depicted as a stairway, leading many teachers to encourage their students to "climb to a higher (level of) thought." The lowest three levels are: knowledge, comprehension, and application. The highest three levels are: analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. "The taxonomy is hierarchical; [in that] each level is subsumed by the higher levels. In other words, a student functioning at the 'application' level has also mastered the material at the 'knowledge' and 'comprehension' levels." (UW Teaching Academy, 2003). One can easily see how this arrangement led to natural divisions of lower and higher level thinking.
Clearly, Bloom's Taxonomy has stood the test of time. Due to its long history and popularity, it has been condensed, expanded, and reinterpreted in a variety of ways. Research findings have led to the discovery of a veritable smörgåsbord of interpretations and applications falling on a continuum - ranging from tight overviews to expanded explanations. Nonetheless, one recent revision (designed by one of the co-editors of the original taxonomy along with a former Bloom student) merits particular attention.
Revised Bloom's Taxonomy (RBT)
During the 1990's, a former student of Bloom's, Lorin Anderson, led a new assembly which met for the purpose of updating the taxonomy, hoping to add relevance for 21st century students and teachers. This time "representatives of three groups [were present]: cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists" (Anderson, & Krathwohl, 2001, p. xxviii). Like the original group, they were also arduous and diligent in their pursuit of learning, spending six years to finalize their work. Published in 2001 (and a chief inspiration for iQpakk™ – MentorMate founder Björn Stansvik read the book cover from cover multiple times endeavoring to include its principles throughout iQpakk™), the revision includes several seemingly minor, yet actually quite significant, changes. Several excellent sources are available which detail the revisions and reasons for the changes.
Exhibit: Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy
|
Knowledge |
Cognitive Process Dimension (there are 19 sub-categories) |
|||||
|
Remember |
Understand |
Apply |
Analyze |
Evaluate |
Create |
|
|
Factual |
List |
Summarize |
Classify |
Order |
Rank |
Combine |
|
Conceptual |
Describe |
Interpret |
Experiment |
Explain |
Assess |
Plan |
|
Procedural |
Tabulate |
Predict |
Calculate |
Differentiate |
Conclude |
Compose |
|
Meta-cognitive |
Appropriate Use |
Execute |
Construct |
Achieve |
Action |
Actualize |
The new terms are defined as:
- Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long-term memory.
- Understanding: Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining.
- Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure through executing, or implementing.
- Analyzing: Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and attributing.
- Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing.
- Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing.
(Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001, pp. 67-68)
The Knowledge Dimension on the left side is composed of four levels that are defined as Factual, Conceptual, Procedural, and Meta-Cognitive. The Cognitive Process Dimension across the top of the grid consists of six levels that are defined as Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create. Each level of both dimensions of the table is subdivided.
Each of the four Knowledge Dimension levels is subdivided into either three or four categories (e.g. Factual is divided into Factual, Knowledge of Terminology, and Knowledge of Specific Details and Elements). The Cognitive Process Dimension levels are also subdivided with the number of sectors in each level ranging from a low of three to a high of eight categories. For example, Remember is subdivided into the three categories of Remember, Recognizing, and Recalling while the Understanding level is divided into eight separate categories. The resulting grid, containing 19 subcategories is most helpful to teachers in both writing objectives and aligning standards with curriculum. The table below outlines these 19 subcategories.
The Cognitive Dimension
|
Categories & Cognitive processes |
Alternative names |
Definitions and example |
| 1. Remember – Retrieve relevant knowledge from long-term memory | ||
|
1.1 Recognizing |
Identifying |
Locating knowledge in long-term memory that is consistent with presented material (e.g. Recognize the dates of important events in U.S. History) |
|
1.2 Recalling |
Retrieving |
Retrieving relevant knowledge from long-term memory (e.g. Recall the dates of important events in U.S. history) |
| 2. Understand – Construct meaning from instructional messages, including oral, written, and graphic communication. | ||
|
2.1 Interpreting |
Clarifying, paraphrasing, representing, translating |
Changing from one form of representation (e.g. numerical) to another (e.g. verbal) (e.g., Paraphrase important speeches and documents) |
|
2.2 Exemplifying |
Illustrating, instantiating |
Finding a specific example or illustration of a concept or principle (e.g., Give examples of various artistic painting styles) |
|
2.3 Classifying |
Categorizing, subsuming |
Determining that something belongs to a category (e.g., Classify observed or described cases of mental disorders) |
|
2.4 Summarizing |
Abstracting, generalizing |
Abstracting a general theme or major point(s) (e.g., Write a short summary of the event portrayed on a video tape) |
|
2.5 Inferring |
Concluding, extrapolating, interpolating, predicting |
Drawing a logical conclusion from presented information (e.g., In learning a foreign language, infer grammatical principles from examples) |
|
2.6 Comparing |
Contrasting, mapping, matching |
Detecting correspondences between two ideas, objects, and the like (e.g., Compare historical events to contemporary situations) |
|
2.7 Explaining |
Constructing models |
Constructing a cause-and-effect model of a system (e.g., explain the causes of important 18th century events in France) |
| 3. Apply – Carry out or use a procedure in a given situation | ||
|
3.1 Executing |
Carrying out |
Applying a procedure to a familiar task (e.g., Divide one whole number by another whole number, both with multiple digits) |
|
3.2 Implementing |
Using |
Applying a procedure to an unfamiliar task (e.g., Use Newton’s Second Law in situations in which it is appropriate) |
| 4. Analyze – Break material into its constituent parts and determine how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose. | ||
|
4.1 Differentiating |
Discriminating, distinguishing, focusing, selecting |
Distinguishing relevant from irrelevant parts or important from unimportant parts of presented material (e.g., Distinguish between relevant and irrelevant numbers in a mathematical word problem) |
|
4.2 Organizing |
Finding coherence, integrating, outlining, parsing, structuring |
Determining how elements fit or function within a structure (e.g., Structure evidence in a historical description into evidence for and against a particular historical explanation) |
|
4.3 Attributing |
Deconstructing |
Determine a point of view, bias, values, or intent underlying presented material (e.g., Determine the point of view of the author of an essay in term of his or her political perspective) |
| 5. Evaluate – Make judgments based on criteria and standards | ||
|
5.1 Checking |
Coordinating, detecting, monitoring, testing |
Detecting inconsistencies or fallacies within a process or product; determining whether a process or product has internal consistency; detecting the effectiveness of a procedure as it is being implemented (e.g., Determine if a scientist’s conclusions follow from observed data) |
|
5.2 Critiquing |
Judging |
Detecting inconsistencies between a product and external criteria, determining whether a product has external consistency; detecting the appropriateness of a procedure for a given problem (e.g., Judge which of two methods is the best way to solve a given problem) |
| 6. Create – Put elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganize elements into a new pattern or structure | ||
|
6.1 Generating |
Hypothesizing |
Coming up with alternative hypotheses based on criteria (e.g., Generate hypotheses to account for an observed phenomenon) |
|
6.2 Planning |
Designing |
Devising a procedure for accomplishing some task (e.g., Plan a research paper on a given historical topic) |
|
6.3 Producing |
Constructing |
Inventing a product (e.g., Build habitats for a specific purpose) |
Source: A Taxonomy for Learning Teaching and Assessing, 2001, Lorin W. Anderson and David R. Krathwohl
The table below outlines the major types and subtypes of knowledge along with examples.
The Knowledge Dimension
|
Major Types and Subtypes |
Examples |
| A. Factual knowledge – the basic elements students must know to be acquainted with a discipline or solve problems in it | |
|
Aa. Knowledge of terminology |
Technical Vocabulary, music symbols |
|
Ab. Knowledge of specific details and elements |
Major natural resources, reliable sources of information |
| B. Conceptual Knowledge – The interrelationships among the basic elements within a larger structure that enable them to function together | |
|
Ba. Knowledge of classifications and categories |
Periods of geological time, forms of business ownership |
|
Bb. Knowledge of principles and generalizations |
Pythagorean theorem, law of supply and demand |
|
Bc. Knowledge of theories, models and structures |
Theory of Evolution, Structure of Congress |
| C. Procedural knowledge – How to do something, methods of inquiry, and criteria for using skills, algorithms, techniques, and methods | |
|
Ca. Knowledge of subject-specific skills and algorithms |
Skills used in painting with water colors, whole number division algorithm |
|
Cb. Knowledge of subject-specific techniques and methods |
Interviewing techniques, scientific method |
|
Cc. Knowledge of criteria for determining when to use appropriate procedures |
Criteria used to determine when to apply a procedure involving Newton’s second law, criteria used to judge the feasibility of using a particular method to estimate business costs |
| D. Meta-cognitive knowledge – Knowledge of cognition in general as well as awareness and knowledge of one’s own cognition | |
|
Da. Strategic knowledge |
Knowledge of outlining as a means of capturing the structure of a unit of subject matter in a text book, knowledge of the use of heuristics |
|
Db. Knowledge about cognitive tasks, including appropriate contextual and conditional knowledge |
Knowledge of the types of tests particular teachers administer, knowledge of the cognitive demands of different tasks |
|
Dc. Self-knowledge |
Knowledge that critiquing essays is a personal strength, whereas writing essays is a personal weakness; awareness of one’s own knowledge level |
Source: A Taxonomy for Learning Teaching and Assessing, 2001, Lorin W. Anderson and David R. Krathwohl
Why use Bloom’s Taxonomy?
As history has shown, this well known, widely applied schema filled a void and provided educators with one of the first systematic classifications of the processes of thinking and learning. The cumulative hierarchical framework consisting of six categories, each requiring achievement of the prior skill or ability before the next more complex one, remains easy to understand. Out of necessity, teachers must measure their students’ ability. Accurately doing so requires a classification of levels of intellectual behavior important in learning. Bloom’s Taxonomy provided the measurement tool for thinking.
With the dramatic changes in society over the last five decades, the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy provides an even more powerful tool to fit today’s teachers’ needs. The structure of the Revised Taxonomy Table matrix “provides a clear, concise visual representation” (Krathwohl, 2002) of the alignment between standards and educational goals, objectives, products, and activities.
Today’s teachers must make tough decisions about how to spend their classroom time. Clear alignment of educational objectives with local, state, and national standards is a necessity. Like pieces of a huge puzzle, everything must fit properly. The Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy Table clarifies the fit of each lesson plan’s purpose, “essential question,” goal or objective. The twenty-four-cell grid from Oregon State University that is shown above along with the Printable Taxonomy Table Examples can easily be used in conjunction with a chart. When used in this manner the “Essential Question” or lesson objective becomes clearly defined.
Source for several sections on Bloom’s Taxonomy: University of Georgia
Application of Bloom's taxonomy for increasing teaching efficiency - case study
