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Bloom's Taxonomy

blooms-taxonomy Image credit: Univ. of Florida Information Technology

Introduction

In education and course learning objective design, Bloom's Taxonomy can be useful in organizing course concepts to achieve specific goals. Bloom's Taxonomy helps us order concepts clearly. It teaches the importance of memorization of knowledge first and then later that knowledge to solve problems. The figure above is a triangle that shows how the lower elements of the triangle should be taught before the higher elements.

Bloom's Taxonomy is a framework for categorizing educational goals, developed by Benjamin Bloom and collaborators in 1956 and revised in 2001 to place creation of new artifacts at the top of a pyramid structure. It is widely used in designing learning objectives, assessments, and instructional strategies to promote higher-order thinking. The taxonomy divides learning into multiple levels.

Domain 1: Cognitive Domain (Knowledge-based)

This is the most widely used part of the taxonomy, focusing on mental skills and knowledge acquisition. It is often represented as a pyramid with six levels of complexity, moving from basic knowledge to higher-order thinking:

  • Remembering: Recalling facts and basic concepts (e.g., define, list, memorize)
  • Understanding: Explaining ideas or concepts (e.g., describe, explain, summarize)
  • Applying: Using information in new situations (e.g., solve, demonstrate, apply)
  • Analyzing: Breaking information into parts to explore relationships (e.g., compare, contrast, categorize)
  • Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria (e.g., justify, critique, assess)
  • Creating: Putting elements together to form new ideas or products (e.g., design, construct, develop)

Domain 2: Affective Domain (Attitude-based)

This focuses on feelings, emotions, and attitudes, covering how learners internalize and reflect on values.

  • Receiving: Awareness and willingness to hear
  • Responding: Active participation through reacting or responding
  • Valuing: Recognizing the worth of something
  • Organizing: Integrating values into one's life
  • Characterizing: Acting consistently with a value system

Domain 3: Psychomotor Domain (Skill-based)

This domain involves physical movement, coordination, and the use of motor skills. While less emphasized in Bloom's original taxonomy, it is important in disciplines that require hands-on tasks.

  • Perception: Using sensory cues to guide actions
  • Set: Readiness to act
  • Guided Response: Early stages of learning skills
  • Mechanism: Proficiency in performing skills
  • Complex Overt Response: Advanced performance of skills
  • Adaptation: Modifying skills to meet new demands
  • Origination: Creating new artifacts from patterns

Purpose

Bloom's Taxonomy helps educators design curriculum and assessments that target not just the memorization of facts, but also the development of critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. By moving students through progressively more complex levels of thinking, it ensures a comprehensive approach to learning that includes both foundational knowledge and higher-order thinking skills.

Using Bloom's Taxonomy To Create Learning Graphs

Bloom's Taxonomy can be a valuable tool in creating a concept dependency graph for courses by organizing the progression of learning objectives in a structured way. A concept dependency graph visualizes how different topics or skills in a course build on each other, guiding the instructional design toward achieving higher levels of learning.

Here's how Bloom's Taxonomy can be used in creating such a graph:

Establish Foundational Concepts Using Lower Levels of Bloom's Taxonomy

  • Cognitive Levels: Remembering and Understanding The base of the graph should start with concepts that involve recalling basic facts and understanding fundamental principles. These concepts form the foundation of the course, as students need to acquire knowledge before they can progress to higher-order thinking.

    Example: In a circuits course, students must first remember Ohm's Law and understand basic components like resistors and capacitors.

    • Graph Node: "Ohm's Law (Remember)"
    • Graph Node: "Basic Components (Understand)"
    • Arrows: Indicate that subsequent concepts depend on these foundational ideas.

  • Cognitive Levels: Applying and Analyzing Once students have the foundation, the graph should show applying knowledge to new situations and analyzing relationships between concepts. This phase introduces the dependency of practical tasks and critical thinking.

    Example: Applying Ohm's Law in circuit analysis and analyzing how changing a resistor affects the overall circuit.

    • Graph Node: "Apply Ohm's Law to Circuits (Apply)"
    • Graph Node: "Analyze Circuit Behavior (Analyze)"
    • Arrows: Indicate that students cannot analyze circuits without first applying the knowledge of Ohm's Law.

Introduce Advanced Concepts Using Higher Levels

  • Cognitive Levels: Evaluating and Creating The top levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, evaluating and creating, should come later in the graph. These concepts rely heavily on mastery of earlier stages and involve judging, designing, or constructing new knowledge or solutions. This is where students synthesize their learning into creative or evaluative tasks.

    Example: Designing a complete circuit based on given requirements or evaluating the efficiency of different circuit designs.

    • Graph Node: "Evaluate Circuit Designs (Evaluate)"
    • Graph Node: "Create a New Circuit (Create)"
    • Arrows: Show the dependency on earlier stages of analysis and application.

Visual Structure: Layering the Concepts

  • Left-to-Right Progression In the concept dependency graph, start with foundational concepts on the left (Remembering, Understanding), and place more advanced concepts on the right (Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, Creating). This progression aligns with Bloom's Taxonomy and clearly shows how mastery at one level enables the next.

    • Foundational concepts (Remember, Understand) -> Intermediate concepts (Apply, Analyze) -> Advanced concepts (Evaluate, Create).

  • Arrows and Dependencies Use arrows to indicate dependencies, showing that students must master simpler concepts before moving on to more complex ones. This makes the learning path explicit and encourages scaffolding in teaching methods.

Supporting Affective and Psychomotor Domains

  • For courses where emotional engagement (Affective Domain) or hands-on skills (Psychomotor Domain) are important, Bloom's Taxonomy can also be used to create a second set of dependencies showing how students develop attitudes or skills over time. For example, psychomotor skills may start with simple tasks (guided response) and advance to complex projects (adaptation, origination).

Example of a Concept Dependency Graph Using Bloom's Taxonomy

  1. Remember: Identify basic circuit elements (resistor, capacitor).
    • Dependencies: None
  2. Understand: Explain how Ohm's Law works in a simple circuit.
    • Dependency: Remember basic elements
  3. Apply: Calculate voltage, current, and resistance in a circuit.
    • Dependency: Understand Ohm's Law
  4. Analyze: Compare different circuit designs and their behaviors.
    • Dependency: Apply Ohm's Law in calculations
  5. Evaluate: Assess the efficiency of different circuits.
    • Dependency: Analyze circuit designs
  6. Create: Design a complete circuit to meet specific requirements.
    • Dependency: Evaluate circuit options and efficiency

Benefits of Using Bloom's Taxonomy in Concept Dependency Graphs

  • Clear Learning Path: It shows a clear path from basic to advanced learning, ensuring students build their understanding progressively.
  • Targeted Instruction: Instructors can design lessons and activities to align with specific cognitive levels, making it easier to address gaps.
  • Tailored Assessment: The taxonomy helps structure assessments to evaluate students at different cognitive levels, from simple recall to complex synthesis.
  • Holistic Learning: Combining all three domains (cognitive, affective, and psychomotor) ensures a balanced learning experience.

By using Bloom's Taxonomy in concept dependency graphs, you can effectively map out not only the sequence of topics but also the increasing complexity and depth of student learning throughout the course.

References

Image Reference

Image Reference CITT University of Florida