Blooms taxonomy

Bloom's Taxonomy is a widely-used framework in education which categorizes educational objectives into different levels of complexity and specificity. It was first presented by Benjamin Bloom in 1956, in his work "Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals." The framework is designed to promote higher forms of thinking in education, such as analyzing and evaluating concepts, as opposed to just remembering facts (rote learning).

History

The original taxonomy consisted of six major categories:

1. Knowledge: Remembering or recalling information.
2. Comprehension: Understanding the meaning of information.
3. Application: Using information in a new way.
4. Analysis: Breaking down information into parts and examining it.
5. Synthesis: Combining parts of information to form a new whole.
6. Evaluation: Judging the value or effectiveness of information.

In 2001, Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl — one of Bloom's original collaborators — revised the taxonomy, renaming and reordering the categories, and changing them from noun to verb forms to reflect more dynamic concepts of thinking:

1. Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling knowledge.
2. Understanding: Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages.
3. Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure in a given situation.
4. Analyzing: Breaking material into its constituent parts and detecting how the parts relate to one another.
5. Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards.
6. Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure.

Importance

It helps both teachers and students

Not only does Bloom’s Taxonomy help teachers understand the process of learning, but it also provides more concrete guidance on how to create effective learning objectives.

Thanks to Bloom’s Taxonomy, teachers nationwide have a tool to guide the development of assignments, assessments, and overall curricula.

This model helps teachers identify the key learning objectives they want a student to achieve for each unit because it succinctly details the learning process.

The taxonomy explains that (Shabatura, 2013):

1. Before you can understand a concept, you need to remember it;
2. To apply a concept, you need first to understand it;
3. To evaluate a process, you need first to analyze it;
4. To create something new, you need to have completed a thorough evaluation

This hierarchy takes students through a process of synthesizing information that allows them to think critically. Students start with a piece of information and are motivated to ask questions and seek out answers.

Bloom’s Level	Key Verbs (keywords)	Example Learning Objective
Create	design, formulate, build, invent, create, compose, generate, derive, modify, develop.	By the end of this lesson, the student will be able to design an original homework problem dealing with the principle of conservation of energy.
Evaluate	choose, support, relate, determine, defend, judge, grade, compare, contrast, argue, justify, support, convince, select, evaluate.	By the end of this lesson, the student will be able to determine whether using conservation of energy or conservation of momentum would be more appropriate for solving a dynamics problem.
Analyze	classify, break down, categorize, analyze, diagram, illustrate, criticize, simplify, associate.	By the end of this lesson, the student will be able to differentiate between potential and kinetic energy.
Apply	calculate, predict, apply, solve, illustrate, use, demonstrate, determine, model, perform, present.	By the end of this lesson, the student will be able to calculate the kinetic energy of a projectile.
Understand	describe, explain, paraphrase, restate, give original examples of, summarize, contrast, interpret, discuss.	By the end of this lesson, the student will be able to describe Newton’s three laws of motion in her/his own words
Remember	list, recite, outline, define, name, match, quote, recall, identify, label, recognize.	By the end of this lesson, the student will be able to recite Newton’s three laws of motion.

The revised version reminds teachers that learning is an active process, stressing the importance of including measurable verbs in the objectives.

And the clear structure of the taxonomy itself emphasizes the importance of keeping learning objectives clear and concise as opposed to vague and abstract (Shabatura, 2013).

Conclusion

As for the scientific validity of Bloom's Taxonomy, it is not a "scientifically proven" concept in the way a hypothesis in the natural sciences might be tested and confirmed. Rather, Bloom's Taxonomy is a pedagogical framework that has been highly influential in education. It's utility lies in providing educators with a structured way to think about the processes of learning and to design educational activities that engage students at the appropriate level of cognitive complexity.

While the taxonomy itself is not scientifically "proven," it is supported by a considerable amount of research suggesting that engaging students in higher-order thinking skills (such as those at the top of Bloom's Taxonomy) leads to more meaningful learning and better outcomes. However, it is also the subject of continued debate and refinement within the educational community.