What
is Bloom’s Taxonomy?
In the early 1950s, a committee was appointed to create taxonomies in cognitive, affective, and psychomotor realms. They tackled the breakdown of cognitive skills first, and published their recommendations in 1956. Benjamin Bloom was lucky enough to be first author on the first publication, thereby forever linking the committee’s work to his name in the public mind.
Think
of Bloom’s taxonomy as a pyramid, with more common and easily-obtained skills
at the base and more difficult and rare skills nearer the top:
Evaluation:
judging and deciding amongst courses of action
Synthesis:
creatively combining disparate elements into unified wholes
Analysis:
breaking down a topic into constituent parts
Application:
using ideas to solve problems
Comprehension:
understanding ideas
Knowledge: knowing facts
We've
all seen students who "cram" for tests and retain the information just
long enough to "dump" the information onto a test. And we've
seen students who understand a given concept but cannot actually use it in a
practical situation. Or students who can solve a single real-world problem
but cannot analyze a new problem for similarities and differences from one
already solved...and so on.
How
can I use Bloom’s taxonomy?
You can use Bloom’s taxonomy in many places as you’re developing instruction, but here’s one example---take the following multiple choice question:
A
high statistical correlation:
means two or more things are not related to each other
means that one caused caused another event
cannot be construed to mean that event caused another event (the correct answer)
This is a perfectly good question, but it can be answered with information straight out of a textbook. Some students could conceivably memorize the answer without actually comprehending the idea, nor know how to use that idea in a real-world situation. In terms of Bloom's taxonomy, this question is operating at the Knowledge level.
Let's re-write it at the Application level:
A researcher has found a high correlation between eating a breakfast cereal high in soluble fiber and a decrease in colorectal cancers. This means:
that in this study, increased fiber intake was statistically associated with decreased rates of colorectal cancers (the correct answer)
that eating breakfast cereals high in fiber prevents colorectal cancer
that a diet low in fiber causes colorectal cancer
The question covers the same topic (correlation does not equal causation), but places it in a typical real-world scenario. Assuming the same situation is not repeated in the textbook, it requires the student both to understand the concept and to apply it to a real-world situation.