Bloom’s Taxonomy Notes

What is Bloom’s Taxonomy?

• Learning objectives is an important responsibility of teachers
• Learning objectives-specific statements of what students should know be able to do and understand at the end of a lesson
  • They describe outcomes NOT activities
  • Written in a specific and purposeful way
  • SMART
    • Specific
    • Measurable
    • Attainable
    • Relevant and result-oriented
    • Time-bound
  • Should be specific-description of what should be learned
• Use ‘bloom’ words to create learning objectives
  • Make sure you use specific words that are effective (action verbs)

More Notes

• Created in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom (educational Psychologist)
• Multi-tiered model of classifying thinking according to six cognitive domains are used to create learning objectives
  • Remembering-retrieving, recognizing and recalling knowledge (ex. define, identify, label, list)
  • Understanding-construct information from oral, written and graphic messages (ex. compare, discuss, explain, summarize)
  • Applying-involves carrying out or using a procedure through executing or implementing (ex. calculate, compute, manipulate, solve)
  • Analyzing-deals with breaking material into constituent parts or relate to one another (ex. distinguish, analyze, differentiate, investigate)
  • Evaluating-has the learner making judgements based on criteria and standards (ex. argue, concluded, critique, test)
  • Creating-or putting elements together to form a functional whole (ex. construct, design, invent, produce)
• It begins with lower order thinking skills and they need prerequisite knowledge before moving up a level
• Lower level is usually in the remembering/understanding stage where higher level is usually in the evaluating/creating stage (but all courses should have a variety in each stage)
• How to write a learning objective?
  • Step 1-start with the stem sentence (After this module, you will be able to:)
  • Step 2-determine the learning outcome
  • Step 3-consult the Bloom’s Wheel to select the appropriate level and verb
  • Step 4-write the verb and learning outcome into a statement that, when combined with the stem, forms a complete sentence (Classify learning objectives within the six cognitive domains of Bloom’s Taxonomy)
• Learning objectives are measurable, observable statements of what students will be able to do at the end of a unit of learning
• Bloom’s taxonomy is a powerful tool to help develop learning objectives because it explains the process of learning:
  • Before you can understand a concept, you must remember it.
  • To apply a concept you must first understand it.
  • In order to evaluate a process, you must have analyzed it.
  • To create an accurate conclusion, you must have completed a thorough evaluation.
• DO NOT use verbs like (understand, know, appreciate, become familiar with, learn or be aware of) because they are too vague