“Taxonomy of Educational Objectives” basically knowns as Bloom’s Taxonomy is an educational framework that was authored by Benjamin Bloom along with his four collaborators – Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl in 1956.
The framework was originally published in the year 1965 and the same has been revised in 2001 (referred to as “The Revised Taxonomy 2001” thereafter).
In this article, we will highlight the key features of the Taxonomy in detail.
Overview
The original Taxonomy was published in 1956. The framework has been aimed to be applied by generations of K-12 teachers and college instructors in their teaching methods.
| Document | Bloom’s Taxonomy |
| Author (s) | Benjamin Bloom, Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl |
| Year | 1956 |
| Place | University of Chicago |
| Revision | The Revised Taxonomy – 2001 |
The “Taxonomy of Educational Objectives” or Blooms Taxonomy consists of six major categories which are given in below –
- Knowledge
- Comprehension
- Application
- Analysis
- Synthesis, and
- Evaluation
The last five categories were presented as “skills and abilities,” with the understanding that knowledge was the necessary precondition for putting these skills and abilities into practice.
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Bloom’s Taxonomy is known for its six categories. Each category includes its subcategories, all lying along a continuum from simple to complex and concrete to abstract.
Bloom’s Taxonomy – 1956
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives provides one of the most widely used ways of organizing the levels of expertise.
You can learn more with the below six categories of it –
- Knowledge: “involves the recall of specific events and information or recognition of terms, ideas, procedure, theories, etc.”
- Comprehension: “ Comprehension refers to a way of translation or interpretation without considering the implications.”
- Application: refers to the “use of general principles or methods to specific concrete situations.
- Analysis: It involves the “separation of a complex idea into its constituent parts and realizing the distinction between hypothesis and fact including the relevant and extraneous variables.”
- Synthesis: It incorporates the “creative, mental construction of ideas and concepts from multiple sources to form complex ideas into new, integrated, and meaningful patterns subject to a specific idea.”
- Evaluation: Evaluation refers to “a process of making a judgment of ideas with self-selected ideas based on observations or informed rationalizations.”
For a better understanding, you can download Bloom’s Taxonomy Pdf here. The research paper defines all terms mention above with well-structured examples.
A comprehensive guide to the Taxonomy including the arrangements of Bloom’s verbs is provided in the pdf below. You can download The original Bloom’s Taxonomy verbs through the button below –
The Revised Taxonomy (2001)
Revised taxonomy employs the use of 25 verbs to help understand the students’ behavior a learning outcome.
The revised taxonomy uses verbs and gerunds instead of nouns of the original taxonomy to achieve its educational objectives. These action words focus on a more dynamic conception of classification. You can learn them below –
- Remember
- Recognizing, listing, and describing
- Recalling information
- Understand
- Interpreting
- Exemplifying
- Classifying
- Summarizing
- Inferring
- Comparing
- Explaining
- Apply
- Executing
- Implementing
- Analyze
- Differentiating
- Organizing
- Attributing
- Evaluate
- Checking
- Critiquing
- Create
- Generating
- Planning
- Producing
In the revised taxonomy of 2001, knowledge was kept at the center for the above 6 cognitive processes. However, it was further separated as new taxonomy based on the types of knowledge used in cognition –
- Factual Knowledge
- Knowledge of terminology
- Knowledge of specific details and elements
- Conceptual Knowledge
- Knowledge of classifications and categories
- Knowledge of principles and generalizations
- Knowledge of theories, models, and structures
- Procedural Knowledge
- Knowledge of subject-specific skills and algorithms
- Knowledge of subject-specific techniques and methods
- Knowledge of criteria for determining when and how to use the right and appropriate procedures
- Metacognitive Knowledge
- Strategic Knowledge
- Knowledge about cognitive tasks, which also includes appropriate contextual and conditional knowledge
- Self-knowledge
A brief summary of the revised taxonomy is provided in the pdf below. To download the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy Of Educational Objectives Pdf please click on the button below –
Goals, aims, and objectives of Blooms Taxonomy
It is aimed to provide a multi-tiered scale to express the level of expertise required to achieve each measurable student outcome.
Organizing measurable student outcomes allows teachers to select appropriate classroom assessment techniques for the course.
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Its main objective is to develop the student in the best possible capabilities and to achieve this objective it has three structured goals –
- Knowledge-based goals
- skills-based goals and
- affective goals (values, attitudes, and interests)
They all have a taxonomy for each which you can find in detail under Table 1 with the Bloom’s Taxonomy pdf attached here. Under each taxonomy, levels of expertise are organized in order of increasing complexity.
Measurable student outcomes that necessitate higher levels of expertise need more sophisticated classroom/lecture hall assessment techniques.
Importance
Like any other taxonomy, bloom’s taxonomy is a map that allows us to understand the things we need to facilitate.
Chacha Nehru, an Indian thinker, realized the gravity of child education and said that students are the future of a country and that one day the future of the nation will be handed over to them.
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It is important to introduce such a learning hierarchy or method so that every student can develop in the best possible manner. Bloom’s Taxonomy deals with student education, ensuring quality learning for students.
And in this way, sets the academic future of students, and shapes the future of a country. It is important as it provides a road map to the teachers letting them know – What to follow and how to make an action plan to teach the students in a right effective manner.
Bloom’s Taxonomy Pdf download
Taxonomy of Educational Objectives or Bloom’s Taxonomy pdf file is available for download on this page. To download the pdf now, click on the below button –
Conclusion
Bloom’s Taxonomy is a convenient way to describe the degree to which we want our students to understand and use concepts, demonstrate particular skills, and have their values, attitudes, and interests affected.
It is critical that we determine the levels of student expertise that we are expecting our students to achieve because this will determine which classroom assessment techniques are most appropriate for the course.
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Bloom’s taxonomy helps educators develop critical thinking and higher-order cognitive ability in students. The best education is one that generates the ability in students to create something.
It also serves the purpose to provide a framework or organization, for classifying classroom lesson objectives.
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