Bloom's Taxonomy

As a professor of various courses at the university level, I have held many lectures on Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives; a framework for categorizing educational goals. Implemented in 1956, Bloom's original framework consisted of six categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation and in 2001 this framework was revised to include the cognitive processes by which thinkers encounter and work with knowledge. In the image above, you can see the revised taxonomy that outlines the six categories of knowledge acquisition: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create.

Bloom's Taxonomy is extremely helpful when designing a course, writing effective learning objectives, and creating pertinent assignment assessments. These learning goals are vital as I teach my courses because they clarify my instructional goals, as well as learning objectives for my students. It is very interesting, because in the revised taxonomy, knowledge is at the root of the six cognitive processes within the original taxonomy: Factual, Conceptual, Procedural, Metacognitive.

The video below is a fantastic overview of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy and how to incorporate technology to achieve learning outcomes that are based on higher-order thinking!