Bloom's Taxonomy

Learning objectives

At the end of this learning unit, you will be able to:

  • Describe Bloom’s taxonomy.
  • Identify the Bloom's level of given objectives.

Once your instructional objectives are defined, you should ideally classify these based on the knowledge required to meet these. The Bloom’s taxonomy, a very popular taxonomy in the field of instructional design defines six levels to classify the objectives.

What are these levels? Do they use some specific performance verbs while classifying the objectives?

Let me explain the Bloom Taxonomy to you. The original Bloom’s taxonomy has also been revised over the years to meet the ever-changing learning needs.

Bloom’s taxonomy

In 1956, Dr. Benjamin Bloom created Bloom’s Taxonomy in which he classified objectives based on the type of knowledge required to accomplish the objective. Bloom’s taxonomy is widely used in the field of instructional design.

Bloom's taxonomy was designed to promote higher-level thinking in the learners, such as analyzing and evaluating processes and concepts by building up from lower-level cognitive skills of understanding and remembering. Dr. Bloom defined six levels, called the Bloom's levels of learning.

Revised Bloom’s taxonomy

In the mid-nineties, Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl reassessed the cognitive sphere and modified the six Bloom levels from noun to verb forms. They also reordered the Bloom's levels. This new taxonomy is more practical and useful for the instructional designers and authors for creating learning objectives.  

Bloom's levels

Evaluation
Synthesis
Analysis
Application
Comprehension
Knowledge
 
Creating
Evaluating
Analysing
Applying
Understanding
Remembering
Bloom levels Old taxonomy New taxonomy Skills demonstrated
Level 1 Knowledge Remembering

Recalling of information

Knowledge of parts, events, and places

Knowledge of key ideas
Level 2 Comprehension Understanding

Understanding meaning

Grasping information

Identifying examples

Translating knowledge into new context

Interpreting facts

Comparing and contrasting objects

Ordering and grouping objects

Inferring causes
Level 3 Application Applying

Using methods, concepts, and theories in new situations

Solving problems using skills or knowledge
Level 4 Analysis Analyzing

Recognizing patterns

Organizing parts

Recognizing hidden meanings

Identifying components
Level 5 Synthesis Evaluating

Comparing and discriminating between ideas

Assessing value of theories

Making choices based on reasoned argument

Verifying value of evidence

Recognizing subjectivity

 
Level 6 Evaluation Creating

Using old ideas to create new ones

Generalizing from given facts

Relating knowledge from several areas

Predicting and drawing conclusions


Examples

Bloom level 1 Bloom level 2 Bloom level 3
State the rules that an objective must follow.

Identify valid objectives.

Write objectives for the given content.

Define a project in ClickLearn Studio.

Select the appropriate project type in ClickLearn Studio based on business requirement.

Create a content project in ClickLearn Studio for a given business requirement.

Define nouns.

Identify nouns in a sentence.

Write a sentence with the given nouns.

Utilizing ClickLearn

Having ascertained the level of knowledge for your training material using the Bloom’s taxonomy, you can decide the content level for your learners. Do the learners need to know, understand, or only remember what they are seeing in a training material?

As an example, should they just know how to add an item into the sales order, or should they be able to analyze what type of item they need to add to the sales order in order to accommodate the customer's need.

Apart from deciding the training content that the learners will need to acquire the desired skills, you should also consider the additional information or instructions to be included. In the example above, you need to add extra notes for the learner to be able to analyze the customers’ needs and not just know where to click to add the line to the sales order.

 
 

Yes, you are right. These levels will be of great use in deciding the level of content and objectives for the learners.

Summary

In this learning unit, you learned to:

  • Describe Bloom’s taxonomy.
  • Identify the Bloom's level of given objectives.

Let us now move to the next chapter on Instructional Objectives.

 

Time Estimate

5 Minutes

Topic