Bloom's Taxonomy!
How Can it Help YOU in the Classroom?
So, what even is this "taxonomy"?
Bloom's Taxonomy is essential tools that can be used by teachers, educators, and instructional designers alike. It was created and published by a man named Benjamin Bloom in the 1950's. It is a hierarchal system that gives a basis for where instructional learning can start and end, though it does not need to be followed in such an order. Below, you will see how this taxonomy is set up.
"The learning can start at any point, but inherent in that learning is going to be the prior elements and stages"
What Does This Chart Mean?
Each level of this pyramid is a level of Bloom's Taxonomy. The order of rigor increases at each step; it starts with "remember" as the lower order thinking skill and builds up to "create" as the higher order thinking skill. To the right of each skill level has a short description of what that skill pertains as well as a short list of verbs that are included in that skill as well. These verbs are words to look for when creating your lesson plans in your unit. For example, if you have your students argue or defend a certain topic or idea then you can see on the taxonomy that you are having your students perform at a high level of thinking, "evaluating". Though this form was used for a long time, it was eventually revised in 2001.
What is the Difference?
No matter which form you choose to look at, it is still representing the process of learning. This revised taxonomy was created in the 1990's by Lorin Anderson with David Krathwohl and published it in 2001. As you can see, they had rearranged the sequence of the categories as well as change the words from nouns to verbs. They had thought that different categories were a higher level of thinking than what Bloom had originally thought.
What Does Each Category Entail?
Remembering
Although remembering is the lowest level of thinking on Bloom's taxonomy, it is still very crucial to the learning process. Remembering is recalling knowledge from memory. This does not have to just consist of memorizing words and concepts. Instead, it can be reinforced and applied in higher level categories. It is not too sensible for anyone to just try to memorize all of this knowledge. When it comes to applying this to technology, it is important to be able to retrieve material. Some key terms to remember when using this category include Recognising, listing, describing, identifying, retrieving, naming, locating, and finding. Some digital additions that can be used with this category include bullet pointing, highlighting, bookmarking or favoriting, social networking, social bookmarking, and searching or "googling".
Understanding
Understanding is creating meaning from different types of functions. It helps to build relationships and links between different pieces of knowledge. At this level of taxonomy, the students should be able to understand the processes behind each concept. They should also be able to explain each of them in their own words as well. In Bloom's Digital Taxonomy, Andrew Churches said, "understanding is building relationships and constructing meaning" (17). Understanding is different from remembering, for example, a student can name all 50 states but cannot show you where on a map they are or anything about them. This category focuses more on constructing meaning rather than listing and highlighting. Some key terms to remember when using this category include interpreting, summarizing, paraphrasing, classifying, comparing, explaining, and exemplifying. Some digital additions that can be implemented into learning include advanced and Boolean searching, blog journaling, categorizing and tagging, and commenting and annotating.
Applying
Applying is the act of carrying out a procedure or using a procedure through executing or implementing. This category is used by using the learned material through different kinds of products such as models, presentations, and simulations. Some key terms to remember while using this category include carrying out, using, exhibiting, showing, implementing, and executing. Some digital additions that can be used to implement this category are running and operating, playing, uploading and sharing, hacking, and editing.
Analyzing
Analyzing involves breaking material or concepts down into multiple parts. Once this is done, you can then determine how the parts relate to an overall structure or purpose. This category involves mental actions as well, which include differentiating, organizing and attributing, and being able to distinguish between different things. Some key terms to keep in mind when implementing this category include comparing, deconstructing, attributing, outlining, integrating, structuring, and finding. You can also use these digital additions to implement this category into your instruction: mashing, linking, reverse engineering, and cracking.
Evaluating
Evaluating is a much higher level of thinking. This category has students making judgments based on different criteria through checking back to their knowledge and facts. Some key terms to remember when using this category include checking, hypothesizing, critiquing, experimenting, judging, testing, detecting, and monitoring. Some digital additions that can be implemented into learning include blog/ vlog commenting and reflecting, posting, moderating, collaborating and networking, testing (Alpha and Beta), and validating.
Creating
Creating is the highest level of thinking on the Bloom's Taxonomy chart. This category requires students to be able to use all of the other levels of thinking in order to construct something coherent using their acquired knowledge about a subject. Creating also requires students to be able to reorganize the elements into a new structure through producing, generating, or planning. Some key terms to remember when using this category include designing, constructing, planning, making, devising, inventing, and producing. Some digital additions that can be implemented into learning include publishing, programming, directing and producing, and filming, animating, videocasting, podcasting, mixing and remixing.
Okay... why is this important?
It is not so much the actions or processes alone, it is more so the quality of these things that really kick student's cognitive gears into motion. The learning process is started at any point on the taxonomy. This means that even the lower taxonomic levels are still being used and scaffolded within each learning task. This taxonomy us about using each of these tools in order to achieve recall, understanding, application, analysis, evaluation, and creativity. It is not just about each of the different tools within each category. Though this is true, the collaboration between different disciplines and categories have a huge positive impact on learning. Coincidentally, the use of digital media provides more outlets and ways for collaboration to be done in the classroom. This taxonomy has become a key tool in classrooms for structuring and understanding the learning process.