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PHOTOCOPIABLE 
43
Lesson 2
Module 3
For now, let me explain a bit about the levels in the 
Knowledge, or Cognitive, domain. There are six of them and 
they are ordered from simple to complex, from concrete 
to abstract, from the lower order thinking skills – they are 
commonly called LOTS - to the higher order thinking skills 
or HOTS … The sequence Dr Bloom proposed was: from 
Knowledge, Comprehension and Application; to Analysis, 
Synthesis and Evaluation.
4 
Answers 
(from the bottom to the top of the pyramid) Knowledge, 
Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation
5 
Answers 
Synthesis changed places with Evaluating and was renamed 
Creating.
Audioscript 
35
Lecturer Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is a 
framework for classifying statements of what we, as teachers, 
expect or intend our students to learn as a result of instruction.
Key to the model is the principle that there is a hierarchy of 
levels. Therefore, when designing learning we should construct 
the curriculum in such a way that until learners master a lower-
order level, they can’t progress to a higher-order level. 
In the 1990s, Lorin Anderson, a former student of Benjamin 
Bloom, and others revised the taxonomy of educational objectives. 
This slide shows their revision. The original number of levels, 
six, and their division into lower-order and higher-order 
categories were retained, but the order of the two highest 
levels was changed. As you can see, Synthesis changed 
places with Evaluating and was renamed Creating in order 
to better reflect the nature of the thinking defined in this 
category. The Knowledge category was also renamed: the word 
‘knowledge ‘was replaced with the word ‘remembering’ instead. 
Comprehension was also retitled – now it is Understanding. So 
this is a revised Bloom’s model which is more up-to-date, I think.
You know, I have often been asked if Bloom’s model is still 
useful today. In my view, Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational 
Objectives still has a practical use today, despite being created 
over 50 years ago. What I like about the model is that it offers a 
framework that we can use as a starting point when designing 
a course. It allows us to rank and structure classroom activities 
and plan the learning process. Importantly, it can help us decide 
how we are going to assess that learning has occurred on the 
level we need.
When you’re reflecting on your teaching, you can ask yourself 
these questions: Which levels are targeted in the course I offer? 
What behaviour should my students demonstrate at each of the 
levels? Are they relevant to what I am trying to achieve?
The model can be a very useful tool to help set you, as a 
teacher, off in the right direction. I’m not suggesting that you 
should be a slave to it, but it should help you to decide how 
you might design your syllabus and then demonstrate that it is 
meeting its intended objectives.