Bloom’s Taxonomy, by Harry Dodds and Lorna Smith
Perhaps ‘Bloom’s Taxonomy’ 1 is the nearest we have in education to the Swiss Army knife. Whether you’re planning for progression, for differentiation, for structured questioning or for AfL, it is immensely useful. Whenever you’re addressing the central question, ‘How do we get the learner from where s/he is to the next stage?’, the Taxonomy will help you structure their learning.
It’s been around for a while, and has had an interesting revision. 2 Benjamin Bloom created this taxonomy for categorizing levels of abstraction of questions that commonly occur in educational settings. This is a very simple guide to the original version.
There are six competences – they are hierarchically arranged, with ‘Knowledge’, the first, representing the lowest level of abstraction, and ‘Evaluation’, the sixth, representing the highest. Here they are.
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Bloom’s Taxonomy, by Harry Dodds and Lorna Smith
- Knowledge
- Comprehension
- Application
- Analysis
- Synthesis
- Evaluation
This resource was downloaded from – The Training GroundPage 1 of 2
Bloom’s Taxonomy, by Harry Dodds and Lorna Smith
Knowledge is about:
•recalling information
•recalling facts - dates, events, places
•having important ideas at your fingertips
•knowing your subject matter.
In building question sequences to explore knowledge, you’d typically use words like define, describe, identify, list, who, when, where…
Comprehension is about:
•understanding information
•understanding meaning
•re-contextualising knowledge – using it new situations
•interpreting, comparing, contrasting
•ordering information; understanding why
•predicting.
In building question sequences to explore comprehension, you’d typically use words like contrast, describe, discuss, predict, summarise…
Application is about:
•using information
•using new ideas and new knowledge and comprehension in new situations
•problem-solving using new knowledge and comprehension.
In building question sequences to explore application, you’d typically use words like apply, demonstrate, illustrate, show, relate, change, classify…
Analysis is about:
•looking for and identifying patterns
•seeing how parts relate to wholes, and vice versa
•seeing beneath the surface
•identifying structures.
In building question sequences to explore analysis, you’d typically use words like analyse, arrange, compare, classify, explain, order…
Synthesis is about:
•using ideas you already have to create new ones
•taking facts and generalising
•making connections – pulling together knowledge and understanding from different areas
•coming to conclusions; answering ‘What if…?’ questions.
In building question sequences to explore synthesis, you’d typically use words like create, modify, rearrange, rewrite…
Evaluation is about:
•weighing one idea or conclusion against another
•assigning values to ideas, conclusions, hypotheses, theories…
•choosing on the basis of reason
•deciding the validity and reliability of evidence
•spotting subjectivity and objectivity.
In building question sequences to explore evaluation, you’d typically use words like assess, compare, conclude, convince, decide, rank, recommend…
In the revised version, the most significant change is from the use of nouns as descriptors to verbs – that makes the whole thing closer to classroom activity, and less abstract.
This resource was downloaded from – The Training GroundPage 1 of 2
Bloom’s Taxonomy, by Harry Dodds and Lorna Smith
- Remember
- Understand
- Apply
- Analyse
- Evaluate
- Create
This resource was downloaded from – The Training GroundPage 1 of 2
Bloom’s Taxonomy, by Harry Dodds and Lorna Smith
The Taxomomy is often presented as a pyramid, which makes it easier to appreciate the hierarchy of competences, from the bedrock ‘lower order’ thinking skill (‘remember’) to the higher order pinnacle, ‘create’. The idea is that you can’t get to one level until you have achieved the one below; to help pupils move on in their learning, you need to be able to judge where they are / what they can do, then work out how to help them climb to the next stage.
1 (Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals; B. S. Bloom (Ed.) Susan Fauer Company, Inc. 1956)
2 (A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing — A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives; Lorin W. Anderson, David R. Krathwohl, Peter W. Airasian, Kathleen A. Cruikshank, Richard E. Mayer, Paul R. Pintrich, James Raths and Merlin C. Wittrock (Eds.) Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 2001)
Simply Googling ‘Bloom’s Taxonomy’ will throw up a great variety of other applications.
This resource was downloaded from – The Training GroundPage 1 of 2