Bloom's Taxonomy

The original Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain (Bloom, Englehart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl,1956) contained six hierarchical levels of learning comprised of knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, and synthesis. Each level was defined by what the student could achieve once mastering the level and the website gives sample verbs that would appear in learning objectives pertaining to that level and a sample behavior.

In 2001 the taxonomy was revised to “fit the more outcome-focused modern education objectives “ (Huitt 2011). Some of the hierarchies were reordered, renamed, and titled “Cognitive process dimension” but the real revision was in adding the “Knowledge dimension”. In this second dimension each of the original “Knowledge” dimensions now had an inner hierarchy. The Cognitive dimension includes Factual Knowledge, Conceptual, Procedural, and Meta-Cognitive Knowledge. The intersection of these two dimensions shows how a student can “know” the cognitive process after learning the material. For example, using the Bloom's taxonomy, to “apply” “conceptual knowledge” of Bloom's Taxonomy a student should be able to “write objectives using taxonomy” (Huitt 2011).

Personally, as an aspiring teacher, this new taxonomy does not change my opinion about what assessment, evaluation and test are based on my reading of Chapter 1 in Nitko's fifth edition of Educational Assessment of Students. What this revised taxonomy will do is increase the effectiveness of evaluation,testing, and overall assessment by allowing me to refine my learning targets using the two-dimensional taxonomy as a sort of map. I will be able to ensure that throughout the course of instruction in a concept or unit I cover learning objectives from nearly all of the two-dimensional intersections presented in the revised taxonomy, thereby giving my students better scaffolding for their study.

References:

Huitt, W. (2011). Bloom et al.'s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Educational Psychology Interactive.Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/bloom.html

(Image Credit) Heer, Rex (2011) A Model of Learning Objectives–based on A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, Iowa State University. Retrieved from http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/RevisedBlooms1.html