Urganch state university

Chapter I The role of Bloom’s Taxonomy in developing educational objectives
1.1 The Importance of Bloom’s Taxonomy: The Teacher’s Guide to an Exceptional Classroom

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a hierarchical classification that prioritizes certain cognitive learning skills according to their levels of difficulty. These skills are distributed among three domains that are supposedly required for learning: the cognitive, the affective, and the psychomotor domains.

The cognitive domain has been the centre of attention of Bloom’s taxonomy and will be the crux of this article. It is mainly concerned with the building of intellectual skills in a pyramid-like manner. The affective domain holds the emotional aspect of the individual and the process of its growth, while the psychomotor domain is responsible for the physical skills and the development of motor skills like speed and precision.
When it comes to the cognitive domain, Benjamin Bloom and his team of cognitive psychologists proposed a set of six skills needed for learning: remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating, and creating. These exist in the revised taxonomy which is an update and improvement on the original one.
These skills are a prerequisite to one another, which means that students should acquire the skills in a pyramid-like manner. They go from basic skills to more advanced ones that are quite crucial for learning. The team’s ultimate goal was to design a framework for teachers, educators, and curriculum coordinators to enable them to understand the cognitive process of learning for students: how students learn, acquire skills, and develop an understanding of a subject.
The following video is an interesting visualization of Bloom’s classification. It also tackles the immense importance of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Originally, the taxonomy was created to provide a base for teachers’ assessment methods especially at the college level. Nowadays, though, Bloom’s Taxonomy takes a deep effect on the educational process in K-12 institutions. Teachers rely on the taxonomy not only in the evaluative part of teaching but in setting clear learning objectives, improving classroom teaching strategies, and creating solid, comprehensive curricula as well.¹
Bloom’s taxonomy also helps teachers and curriculum coordinators enhance quizzes, assignments, and projects according to the pyramid of learning for students. What is especially impressive about Bloom’s Taxonomy is how flexible and practical it is in application to different topics. Teachers and educators can apply this taxonomy to teaching the respiratory system, trigonometry, or even 20th-century literature.
Factual Knowledge: Basic elements of a discipline that a student must know and be able to work with to solve problems including basic terminology and specific details and elements.
Conceptual Knowledge: Interrelationships between basic factual knowledge that demonstrate how elements work together, for example, classifications and categories, principles and generalizations, and theories, models, and structures.
Procedural Knowledge: How something is done including the methods of inquiry, skills, algorithms, techniques, and methods needed to investigate, apply, or analyze information.
Metacognitive Knowledge: Awareness and knowledge of one’s own cognition including strategies for learning, contextual and conditional knowledge about cognitive tasks, and self-knowledge.
In doing research on Bloom’s Taxonomy we found a large body of people seeking a Bloom’s Taxonomy revised approach to learning. Bloom’s Taxonomy is just one of the many systems we have researched to create the Education for Life Program and it divides educational objectives into three areas of focus: Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor. The focus of this methodology is that higher levels of achievement are dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and the skills at lower levels. A goal of Bloom’s Taxonomy is to motivate educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more holistic form of education. This page is meant to function as an ever-expanding archive of open source, free-shared, and duplicable Bloom’s Taxonomy inspired ideas that we organize into the primary components of the One Community Education Program: Curriculum for Life, Teaching Strategies for Life, Learning Tools and Toys for Life, and building The Ultimate Classroom. These components are designed to be combined to create endless “Lesson Plans for Life” purposed to grow and evolve what we feel will be the most comprehensive, effective, and diversely applicable free-education program and resource archive in the world. The One Community Foundations of Teaching, Leadership, and Communicating, combined with a collaborative Evaluation and Evolution Component (Portfolio Creation and Maintenance), help us to further grow and adapt both the program and as individuals.
If you have ideas you’d like to add to this developing Bloom’s Taxonomy revised approach resource guide, please use our Education for Life Collaborative Input Page. Our research thus far has focused on the Bloom’s Taxonomy of education objectives, Bloom’s Taxonomy Chart, and Bloom’s Taxonomy Wheel. Our goal is to list here what we feel are the best, simplest, and most usable tools from this philosophy and approach with application and benefit for all ages?
NOTE: One Community does not believe there is any one system that is the best. It is our Highest Good of All philosophy to look at all systems and all methodologies. Our goal is to learn and integrate everything we can to better inspire and create the Education for Life program as an open source and free-shared globally collaborative and accessible program available to positively contribute to the education of anyone who chooses to use it.
Here is our continually evolving list of Bloom’s Taxonomy revised ideas divided into the categories of the Education for Life program:
Bloom’s Taxonomy Foundations of Leadership, Teaching, and Communicating
If you’d like to help us make this list better, please submit your Bloom’s Taxonomy inspired suggestions so that we can integrate them here and into the Foundations of Teaching, Leadership, and Communicating component.
● Write an operations manual and keep it accessible
● Make decisions based first and foremost upon efficacy
● Recite policies to help to remember them and keep them fresh
● Use the laws of statistics to evaluate the reliability of written tests
● Gather information, determine faulty parts, advise new structure
● Increase comprehension by having the steps of complex tasks explained back in one’s own words
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Bloom’s Taxonomy Curriculum Ideas
If you’d like to help us make this list better, please submit your Bloom’s Taxonomy inspired suggestions so that we can integrate them here and into the Curriculum for Life component.
● Applying – Implementing, carrying out, using, executing
● Creating – designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing, devising, making
● Remembering – Recognizing, listing, describing, identifying, retrieving, naming, locating, finding
● Evaluating – Checking, hypothesizing, critiquing, experimenting, judging, testing, Detecting, Monitoring
● Analyzing – Comparing, organizing, deconstructing, attributing, outlining, finding, structuring, integrating
● Understanding – Interpreting, summarizing, inferring, paraphrasing, classifying, comparing, explaining, exemplifying
Bloom’s Taxonomy Teaching Strategies
If you’d like to help us make this list better, please submit your Bloom’s Taxonomy inspired suggestions so that we can integrate them here and into the Teaching Strategies for Life component.
● Singing the states in alphabetical order
● Read a paragraph and explain to a friend what it meant
● Draw a picture for each piece of information given, then put it all in an order
● Build a home for an animal based on information known
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Bloom’s Taxonomy Learning Tools and Toys
If you’d like to help us make this list better, please submit your Bloom’s Taxonomy inspired suggestions so that we can integrate them here and into the Learning Tools and Toys for Life component.
Bloom’s Taxonomy Classroom Design
If you’d like to help us make this list better, please submit your Bloom’s Taxonomy inspired suggestions so that we can integrate them here and into the Ultimate Classroom component.
● Equip the room with as many necessary tools as possible for unlimited creation
● One room split into each section for working on that particular aspect/level, the center of the circle being the ‘creation’ section
Six Levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy
“Creativity follows mastery, so mastery of skills is the first priority for young talent.” This quotation by Benjamin Bloom reflects on how the learning process is usually built on a solid base. For example, it is difficult for a person to master writing an argumentative article without learning the definition and purpose of conducting arguments.
As indicated below, the 2001 revised Taxonomy placed 6 verbs to describe the learning process of students. This classification indeed helps teachers understand the cognitive process that takes place when a student learns something new. Each level is accompanied by a detailed example to show you how the application of Bloom’s Taxonomy is carried out in the teaching of a certain subject.
Remember
This verb comes as the lowest level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The student shows a basic understanding by being able to recall the primary facts about a specific topic. An example of this would be to remember the definition of photosynthesis and memorize the chemical equation that represents the process itself.
Understand
This stage comes right after the memorization of a subject and it indicates the student’s ability to describe and explain the fact that he/she remembered. Carrying on with the example of photosynthesis, at this point, the student should be capable of explaining which reactant is especially important for the process to occur.
Apply
The application process is definitely dependent upon the first two steps within the learning process. Now, the student is expected to implement what he/she learned on paper. For example, the student would be given a question that asks them to draw a labelled diagram showing how both plants and humans benefit from the process of photosynthesis.
Analyze
Here, this process reaches a more advanced stage in which the learner is capable of determining relationships between different aspects of the topic and making connections and comparisons based on that finding. A good example of this stage would be in the form of a question in which the student is asked to compare and contrast photosynthesis in plants and respiration in animals.
Evaluate
This level is a comparatively high one on Bloom’s pyramid. It is entirely contingent upon the lower foundations of learning. Evaluation at this point will require a relatively complex mental ability. Here, learners are expected to judge the methods presented to them by critically examining the subject at hand. By way of illustration, the student would be able to assess a peer’s exam question paper on the topic of photosynthesis.
Create
At this final stage, the student would have reached enough understanding of the topic to be able to develop original work. Designing an exam question based on the topic of photosynthesis is what the student can achieve at this point.²

1.2 How Bloom’s can aid in course design

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a classification of the different outcomes and skills that educators set for their students (learning outcomes). The taxonomy was proposed in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist at the University of Chicago. The terminology has been recently updated to include the following six levels of learning. These 6 levels can be used to structure the learning outcomes, lessons, and assessments of your course. :

Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long‐term memory.
Understanding: Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining.
Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure for executing, or implementing.
Analyzing: Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and attributing.
Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing.
Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing.
Like other taxonomies, Bloom’s is hierarchical, meaning that learning at the higher levels is dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and skills at lower levels. You will see Bloom’s Taxonomy often displayed as a pyramid graphic to help demonstrate this hierarchy. We have updated this pyramid into a “cake-style” hierarchy to emphasize that each level is built on a foundation of the previous levels.

Bloom’s taxonomy is a powerful tool to help develop learning outcomes 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.
However, we don’t always start with lower order skills and step all the way through the entire taxonomy for each concept you present in your course. That approach would become tedious–for both you and your students! Instead, start by considering the level of learners in your course:
Are lots of your students freshman? Is this an “Introduction to…” course? If so, many your learning outcomes may target the lower order Bloom’s skills, because your students are building foundational knowledge. However, even in this situation we would strive to move a few of your outcomes into the applying and analyzing level, but getting too far up in the taxonomy could create frustration and unachievable goals.
Are most of your students juniors and seniors? Graduate students? Do your students have a solid foundation in much of the terminology and processes you will be working on your course? If so, then you should not have many remembering and understanding level outcomes. You may need a few, for any radically new concepts specific to your course. However, these advanced students should be able to master higher-order learning objectives. Too many lower level outcomes might cause boredom or apathy.
How Bloom’s works with learning outcomes
Fortunately, there are “verb tables” to help identify which action verbs align with each level in Bloom’s Taxonomy.
You may notice that some of these verbs on the table are associated with multiple Bloom’s Taxonomy levels. These “multilevel-verbs” are actions that could apply to different activities. For example, you could have an outcome that states “At the end of this lesson, students will be able to explain the difference between H2O and OH-.” This would be an understanding level outcome. However, if you wanted the students to be able to “…explain the shift in the chemical structure of water throughout its various phases.” This would be an analyzing level verb.
Adding to this confusion, you can locate Bloom’s verb charts that will list verbs at levels different from what we list below. Just keep in mind that it is the skill, action or activity you will teach using that verb that determines the Bloom’s Taxonomy level.

How Bloom’s works with Quality Matters
For a course to meet the Quality Matters standards it must have learning outcomes that are measurable. Using a verb table like the one above will help you avoid verbs that cannot be quantified, like: understand, learn, appreciate, or enjoy. Quality Matters also requires that your course assessments (activities, projects, and exams) align with your learning outcomes. For example, if your learning outcome has an application level verb, such as “present”, then you cannot demonstrate that your students have mastered that learning outcome by simply having a multiple choice quiz.
Course level and lesson level outcomes
The biggest difference between course and lesson level outcomes is that we don’t directly assess course level outcomes. Course level outcomes are just too broad. Instead, we use several lesson level outcomes to demonstrate mastery of one course level outcome. To create good course level outcomes, we need to ask ourselves: “what do I want the students to have mastery of at the end of the course?” Then, after we finalize our course level outcomes, we have to make sure that mastery of all of the lesson level outcomes underneath confirm that a student has mastery of the course level outcome–in other words, if your students can prove (through assessment) that they can do each and every one of the lesson level outcomes in that section, then you as an instructor agree they have mastery of the course level outcome.
How Bloom’s works with course level and lesson level outcomes:
Course level outcomes are broad. You may only have 3-5 course level outcomes. They would be difficult to measure directly because they overarch the topics of your entire course.
Lesson level outcomes are what we use to demonstrate that a student has mastery of the course level outcomes. We do this by building lesson level outcomes that build toward the course level outcome. For example, a student might need to demonstrate mastery of 8 lesson level outcomes in order to demonstrate mastery of one course level outcome.
Because the lesson level outcomes directly support the course level outcomes, they need to build up the Bloom’s taxonomy to help your students reach mastery of the course level outcomes. Use Bloom’s Taxonomy to make sure that the verbs you choose for your lesson level outcomes build up to the level of the verb that is in the course level outcome. The lesson level verbs can be below or equal to the course level verb, but they CANNOT be higher in level. For example, your course level verb might be an Applying level verb, “illustrate.” Your lesson level verbs can be from any Bloom’s level that is equal or below this level (applying, understanding, or remembering).
Steps towards writing effective learning outcomes:
Make sure there is one measurable verb in each objective.
Each outcome needs one verb. Either a student can master the outcome , or they fail to master it. If an outcome has two verbs (say, define and apply), what happens if a student can define, but not apply? Are they demonstrating mastery?
Ensure that the verbs in the course level outcome are at least at the highest Bloom’s Taxonomy as the highest lesson level outcomes that support it. (Because we can’t verify they can evaluate if our lessons only taught them (and assessed) to define.)
Strive to keep all your learning outcomes measurable, clear and concise.
When you are ready to write, it can be helpful to list the level of Bloom’s next to the verb you choose in parentheses. For example:
Course level outcome 1. (apply) Demonstrate how transportation is a critical link in the supply chain.
1.1. (understand) Discuss the changing global landscape for businesses and other organizations that are driving change in the global environment.
1.2. (apply) Demonstrate the special nature of transportation demand and the influence of transportation on companies and their supply chains operating in a global economy.
This trick will help you quickly see what level verbs you have. It will also let you check that the course level outcome is at least as high of a Bloom’s level as any of the lesson level outcomes underneath.