Bloom’s Taxonomy

What is Bloom’s Taxonomy?

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a hierarchical framework that classifies different levels of thinking and learning. Rather than focusing on instructional methods, it centers the way that learners think and the strategies that are most effective in promoting positive learning outcomes. This makes it an appealing alternative to standardized testing, as it encourages students to think critically and deeply about the content in a lesson. 

Example: Following Bloom’s Taxonomy, students began the lesson by defining key terms of the story before eventually writing their own version inspired by its themes.

Categories of educational objectives in the original taxonomy

Developed in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom, the original taxonomy aimed to categorize the cognitive domain of learning based on six educational objectives: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The first category, knowledge, was framed as essential for helping learners move through the subsequent skills. These six categories were positioned as being on a continuum from simple and concrete to abstract and complex.

Categories of cognitive processes in the revised taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy was revised in 2001 by a team of instructional researchers, cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists, and testing and assessment specialists. Moving away from the original educational objectives, the revised taxonomy is more dynamic, conceptualizing the categories as action verbs to describe key cognitive tasks and processes. The revised categories are: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.

What are the benefits of using Bloom’s Taxonomy?

The revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy is still widely used today by educators, as it can help them teach learners to engage with content in progressively deeper and more critical ways. It can help both learners and educators achieve learning objectives more effectively. For example, an instructor might begin by asking students to memorize and rephrase key terms in their own words as part of the “remember” and “understand” categories. From there, students would progress through the taxonomy to develop a deep understanding of the subject and interact with the material in increasingly more complex ways.