Bloom’s Taxonomy

Benjamin Bloom, leading a group of educational psychologists, published taxonomy of learning behaviors in 1956 (when he was 44---just a trivia thrown at you) and ever since, educators and teachers are creating learning materials and assessments that, respectively, teach and test the learners for particular skills. This taxonomy was named ‘Bloom’s taxonomy.’

Bloom’s taxonomy identifies three domains of learning---in other words, it mentions that there are primarily three types of learning:

1. Cognitive Domain: This is the intellectual domain that deals with the thinking part of the learning. It has to do with the knowledge that a person has or gains. The skills that a person acquires in (or owing to) this domain are used more in science and commerce subjects.
   
   
2. Affective Domain: This domain deals with the attitude of the learner---this is the emotional part of the learning so to speak. It has to do with how a person feels about something, say a piece of art. The skills that a person acquires in (or owing to) this domain are used more in humanities or arts subjects.
   
   
3. Psychomotor Domain: This domain deals with the manual or physical skills of a learner. It concerns whether the learner is able to ‘do’ things; such as, creating something by hands, e.g., a sculpture. The skills that a person acquires in (or owing to) this domain are used more in sports and drama.

Bloom’s taxonomy presents a detailed study on cognitive and affective domains, leaving the psychomotor domain for future educational psychologists and researchers to explore, by giving the explanation that our education system does not have enough of the psychomotor skills to teach or assess (which I think is not true).

I have so far used Bloom’s taxonomy for the cognitive domain; and therefore owing to my limited exposure, this is the area I will touch upon in this article.

Cognitive Domain

Bloom’s taxonomy classifies cognitive thinking into six levels of complexity. Each level is signified by a noun and is hierarchically arranged. Each succeeding level builds on the preceding level and is thus more complex. Unless you have mastered the preceding level, moving on to the next succeeding level successfully is fallacious. You can use these levels as an effective framework to build learning objectives and assessments for a learning piece.

Let’s look into these levels first to understand how the learning objectives and assessments can be designed around them.

Bloom Levels

The six definitive levels (a.k.a. stages or skill sets) addressed in the cognitive domain are:

1. Knowledge: At this level, the learner is able to recall the information delivered---the learner remembers ‘who, what, where, when’ from the learning. For this Bloom level, the verbs you can use to design the learning objectives and assessments: list, identify, define, describe, recognize, select, state (remember what is taught). Example: What are the six stages of cognitive learning in Bloom’s taxonomy?
   
   
2. Comprehension: At this level, the learner is able to reword the learning in his or her own words because now he or she has understood the learning. For this Bloom level, the verbs you can use to design the learning objectives and assessments: explain, summarize, reword, understand, paraphrase, generalize, exemplify (not only recall what is taught but also comprehend and understand it). Example: Explain the need of Bloom’s taxonomy in the corporate and education sector.
   
   
3. Application: At this level, the learner is able to use or place the learning in a new environment---the learner applies the learning to outside-the-classroom environment. For this Bloom level, the verbs you can use to design the learning objectives and assessments: use, produce, solve, produce, apply, demonstrate, prepare (apply the learning to a new situation). Example: Demonstrate how you moved up the different Bloom levels for a new skill that you learned lately.
   
   
4. Analysis: At this level, the learner looks at the learning independently---the learner is able to differentiate between facts (the absolute) and inferences (the subjective or the relative; point of views by others). At this time, the learner disintegrates the learning into chunks that make more sense of the organizational structure of the learning. For this Bloom level, the verbs you can use to design the learning objectives and assessments: analyze, compare, contrast, examine, deconstruct, differentiate, infer (able to look at the learning from a critic’s and independent point of view). Example: Compare and contrast the LOTS and HOTS of the cognitive domain of Bloom’s taxonomy.
   
   
5. Synthesis: At this level, the learner creates something new. This is the time when learner reuses information of different types in a new, novel manner. For this Bloom level, the verbs you can use to design the learning objectives and assessments: develop, synthesize, create, design, compile, generate, devise (make an original piece of work, contribute something anew---in verbal or physical form). Example: Create a new classification system for the cognitive domain.
   
   
6. Evaluation: At this level, the learner judges views and works. For this Bloom level, the verbs you can use to design the learning objectives and assessments: review, judge, justify, interpret, defend, evaluate, support (wear a judge’s hat and review the content for assessment). Example: Review Bloom’s taxonomy for writing effective course objectives and assessment.

Note: Knowledge and comprehension are known as LOTS (Lower Ordered Thinking Skills) and Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation are known as HOTS (Higher Ordered Thinking Skills).

Wording the Course Competencies and Assignments

The verbs, mentioned against each Bloom level, identify the cognitive level at which the learning material is aimed. In other words, the choice of verbs indicates the level of learning that a learner will attain after taking the learning. You, as a course writer, can use these verbs to write your course competencies, learning objectives or outcomes, and the assessments. The learner, on the other hand, can take a closer look at the verbs used in the learning outcomes (of the course syllabus) to understand what the course has to offer and what (level) he or she is expected to achieve after taking the course. So, the verbs in the learning objectives of your learning piece define what your learner will learn.

For each Bloom level, there are certain activities that are more appropriate than the others as assignments. Next, let’s look at those activities.

Designing the Course Assignments

While designing assignments or assessments, here are the activities that can be used to demonstrate the respective level of learning:

Bloom Levels 1 and 2 (lesson objective or competency is knowledge and comprehension)

1. For non-gradable assignments, you can use ‘Background probe.’ It is better to starts at LOTS at the beginning of the course; so, you can ask them questions with which they would be familiar with---ask about their educational and skill level background, any previous knowledge related to the subject that they might have---this is the background probe and covers Bloom levels 1 and 2: knowledge and comprehension. Students will write what they already know (level 1) and understand (level 2). Generally background probe is not graded and is used to check whether the students have the right knowledge and understanding; if yes, it is perfect; if no, it becomes an area for intervention---the facilitator should correct the misconceptions and the wrong knowledge.
   
   
2. For grading, you can use quizzes, MCQs, and fill in the blanks. Here, you can just ask the learners to identify or list whatever they have been taught in the introductory lesson.

Bloom Level 3 (lesson objective or competency is application)

1. MCQs
2. Essay questions
3. Short class project

You can use some discussion-based assignment in which students get to interact with each other so that they can apply whatever they have learned.

Bloom Level 4 (lesson objective or competency is Analysis)

1. Essay questions
2. Case studies
3. Class or group projects

Bloom Level 5 (lesson objective or competency is Synthesis)

1. Project
2. Portfolio
3. Performance

Bloom Level 6 (lesson objective or competency is Evaluation)

1. Reflecting on creations by self
2. Evaluating others work
3. Doing Cost benefit analysis (CBA)

You can use these broad-level assignments ideas (and more as you think apt) for designing activities that let you test the learner’s skill for a particular Bloom level.

Conclusion

Bloom’s taxonomy has found multiple uses and wide acceptance. At the same time, it has experienced lot of criticism primarily because it is the first classification of education to come up with different domains and levels of thinking, feeling, and doing. In spite of the criticisms and numerous alterations, modifications, and suggestions to the original Bloom’s taxonomy, it remains the most understood, accepted, and applied technique in the field of creating learning objectives and designing assessments. The biggest proof for it being the client requirements for designing the learning courses---most of the clients ask the course to be developed and assessed on Bloom level and I am yet to come across a client that asks to work on a taxonomy other than Bloom’s (no offence meant for the modifications to Bloom; I just want to state that it is working so far in its originally stated form).