What if you could map the path from memorization to genius?
If you could do such a thing, it would look a lot like Bloom’s Taxonomy!
Bloom’s Taxonomy attempts to visually organize how people learn, from basic remembering and understanding, up to evaluating and creating. Remember is the foundation of the pyramid, with Create at the top. The idea is that learners need to remember and understand basic definitions and concepts in order to use that information for higher-level learning.
Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy
- Create (Highest): Produce new or original work Design, assemble, construct, conjecture, develop, formulate, author, investigate
- Evaluate: Justify a stand or decision appraise, argue, defend, judge, select, support, value, critique, weigh
- Analyze: Draw connections among ideas differentiate, organize, relate, compare, contrast, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, test
- Apply: Use information in new situations execute, implement, solve, use, demonstrate, interpret, operate, schedule, sketch
- Understand: Explain ideas or concepts classify, describe, discuss, explain, identify, locate, recognize, report, select, translate
- Remember (Lowest): Recall facts and basic concepts define, duplicate, list, memorize, repeat, state
History of Bloom’s Taxonomy
Benjamin Bloom (puts the Bloom in “Bloom’s Taxonomy”) led the classification of learning into a structured taxonomy, leading to the creation of Bloom’s Taxonomy in 1956. The original version featured nouns: Evaluation (Highest), Synthesis, Analysis, Application, Comprehension, and Knowledge (Lowest).
In 2001, Lorin Anderson (a former student of Benjamin Bloom) and David Krathwohl updated the taxonomy. As learning is an action, they transformed the nouns from the original taxonomy into verbs for Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy.
As part of the 2001 revision, Anderson and Krathwohl proposed a secondary dimension to the taxonomy: a “knowledge dimension” vs the “cognitive process dimension.” In addition to the level of learning, Anderson and Krathwohl posit that instructional designers should consider the type of knowledge as well as the cognitive level of learning, including factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive. Note that this two-dimensional revision does not include affective aspects or learning, nor social, nor culture. It’s purely cognitive overall.
Using Bloom’s Taxonomy
A learning objective has three parts:
- Audience: the person doing the behavior
- Behavior: what the learner should be able to do
- Condition: whatever conditions you want the learner to be able to do the behavior under (e.g. using a job aid, in 60 seconds, etc)
When you’re writing learning objectives, you can do a Google search for Bloom’s Taxonomy verbs, and you’ll find a variety of lists of verbs organized by taxonomy level that can inspire you to write your objectives. The remember level of Bloom’s taxonomy will have verbs like define and recall. The understand level of Bloom’s taxonomy will have slightly higher-level verbs like differentiate and distinguish. Consider the level at which your objectives should lie and how they might feed into overarching outcomes that should be written at even higher levels.
Outcomes vs. Objectives
The difference between outcomes and objectives really depends on who you’re talking to and what the context is. Ultimately, these two words can be used interchangeably. However, in practice, outcomes usually refers to a higher-level outcome (like the overarching outcome for a workshop or a class), whereas the objectives are the individual behaviors that a learner should be able to master in order to achieve that outcome.
Here’s an example of Outcomes vs. Objectives for a workshop. Note that the outcome is the overarching goal for learners, and the objectives add up and align to the outcome.
Outcome
Analyze different types of authority (subject expertise, societal position, and special experience) and their appropriate applications in information evaluation (Conceptual Knowledge, Analyze level)
Learning Objectives
1.Recall specific terminology and indicators associated with different authority types, such as credentials, titles, and experiences. (Factual Knowledge, Remember level)
2.Explain the relationships between different types of authority and their typical contexts of use in academic and public discourse. (Conceptual Knowledge, Understand level)
3.Implement a systematic approach to identify authority indicators within various information sources. (Procedural Knowledge, Apply level)
4.Differentiate between the strengths and limitations of subject expertise, societal position, and special experience as forms of authority in specific contexts. (Conceptual Knowledge, Analyze level)