BLOOM’S TAXONOMY
Language learning is a complex process and teachers have to reflect on many
aspects of the psychology of successful learning. When it comes to the practical
application of theory, one of the most succinct summaries of how we learn is
Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Bloom’s Taxonomy is concerned with classifications of learning objectives within
education. It was created in 1956 under the leadership of educational
psychologist Benjamin Bloom (1913 -1999) in order to promote higher forms of
thinking, such as analysing, and evaluating concepts, processes, procedures and
principles, rather than remembering facts.
Bloom and his colleagues identified three domains of educational activities
(learning)1:
● cognitive: mental skills (knowledge)
● affective: growth in feelings or emotional areas (attitude)
● psychomotor: manual or physical skills (skills)
The Cognitive domain involves knowledge and the development of intellectual
skills. Bloom categorised and ordered thinking skills and goals along a continuum
from Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTS) to Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS),
that is, from the most simple (the recall of knowledge) to the most complex
(making judgements about the value of and idea):
BLOOM’S REVISED TAXONOMY
1 Benjamin BLOOM, et al. (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Cognitive Domain, Longman.
Nowadays there is a international recognition that education is more than just
knowledge and thinking. It also involves teachers and learners’ feelings, beliefs
and the cultural environment of the classroom. The importance of teaching
thinking and creativity is an important element in modern education.2
Lorin Anderson, a former student of Bloom, published in 2001 a revised
classification of thinking skills. In this new taxonomy, Anderson changes the
names from nouns to verbs, renames and rearranges some of the levels and
differentiates between the content of thinking (knowledge dimension) and the
procedures used in solving problems (cognitive process dimension)3.
According to Anderson, the Knowledge dimension is the “knowing what” and it
has four categories:
● Factual knowledge, which includes isolated bits of information, such as
vocabulary definitions and knowledge about specific details.
● Conceptual knowledge, which consists of systems of information, such
as classifications and categories.
● Procedural knowledge, which includes algorithms, techniques, rules of
thumb, and methods as well as knowledge about when to use these
procedures.
● Metacognitive knowledge, which refers to knowledge of thinking
processes and information about how to manipulate these processes
effectively.
The Cognitive process dimension is the “knowing how” and, as the original
version (Bloom’s cognitive domain), has six skills organised from simplest to most
complex:
2 Jean BREWSTER, Thinking skills for CLIL. www.onestopenglish.com
3 Lorin ANDERSON, et al. (2001), A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing. A revision of Bloom’s. Longman.
As said by Anderson, each level of knowledge can correspond to each level of
cognitive process, so a student can remember factual or procedural knowledge,
understand conceptual or metacognitive knowledge, or analyse factual
knowledge.
The following chart lists examples of verbs related to each skill of the Cognitive
Dimension:
CATEGORY KEY WORDS (VERBS)
Remembering consists of recognizing and define, describe, find, identify, know, label,
recalling relevant information previously list, match, name, outline, recall,
learned. recognise, reproduce, retrieve, select,
state.
Understanding is the ability to classify, comprehend, convert, defend,
comprehend the meaning and interpret the distinguish, estimate, explain, exemplify,
instructions and problems. extend, generalize, infer, interpret,
paraphrase, predict, rewrite, summarize,
translate, understand.
Applying refers to using a learned apply, carry out, change, compute,
procedure in a new situation. construct, demonstrate, discover,
implement, manipulate, modify, operate,
predict, prepare, produce, relate, show,
solve, use.
Analysing consists of breaking knowledge analyse, break down, compare, contrast,
down into its parts and thinking about how diagram, deconstruct, differentiate,
the parts relate to its overall structure. discriminate, distinguish, find, identify,
illustrate, infer, integrate, organise, outline,
relate, select, separate, structure.
Evaluating is the ability to make judgments appraise, check, compare, conclude,
about the value of ideas or materials. contrast, criticise, critique, defend,
describe, discriminate, evaluate,
experiment, explain, interpret, judge,
justify, relate, summarise, support, test.
Creating involves putting things together to build, categorise, combine, compile,
make something new. compose, construct, create, devise,
design, explain, generate, invent, make,
modify, organise, plan, produce,
rearrange, reconstruct, relate, reorganise,
revise, rewrite, summarise, tell, write.
Andrew Churches claims that Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy describes many
traditional classroom practices, behaviours and actions, but does not account for
the new processes and actions associated with Web 2.0 technologies. Thus, he
proposed Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy, a list of verbs to know what actions define
each stage of the taxonomy. This updated revision is useful when it comes to use
technology in the classroom. An infographic showing Churches’ option is found
here.
REFERENCES
Anderson, L.W., Krathwohl, D.R., Airasian, P.W., Cruikshank, K.A.,
Mayer, R.E., Pintrich, P.R., Raths, J., Wittrock, M.C. (2001). A Taxonomy
for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A revision of Bloom's Taxonomy
of Educational Objectives. New York: Pearson, Allyn & Bacon.
BREWSTER, Jean. Thinking skills for CLIL. Retrieved October 2016 from
www.onestopenglish.com
Bloom, B.S. (Ed.). Engelhart, M.D., Furst, E.J., Hill, W.H., Krathwohl,
D.R. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: The
Cognitive Domain. New York: David McKay Co Inc.
Global Digital Citizen Foundation. Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy Verbs
[Infographic]. Retrieved October 2016 from
https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/blooms-digital-taxonomy-verbs
Lorin ANDERSON, et al. (2001), A taxonomy for learning, teaching and
assessing. A revision of Bloom’s. Longman.
