Bloom's Taxonomy
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Description
This MicroSim draws Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive levels as a stepped pyramid of six blocks of equal height, each narrower than the one beneath it. From the base up the blocks are Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate and Create. The title, Bloom's Taxonomy: RUAAEC, spells the first letter of each level in that order. The blocks taper in a straight line and carry no data.
The MicroSim has no sliders or buttons. Move the pointer over a block, or tap it on a touch screen, and the block is outlined in black, a color key under the pyramid shows its swatch and name, and the text below gives a definition of the level and the cognitive processes it includes. For most levels it also notes how a feature of this textbook can support that level. Move the pointer away and the text returns to the instruction line.
The level names are those of the 2001 revision of Bloom's taxonomy. The course description uses the same six levels to organize this course's 18 learning objectives, three per level, and the Instructor's Guide explains how to use the levels when writing assignments and reading quiz questions.
Lesson Plan
Learning Objectives
After using this MicroSim, students will be able to:
- Identify the six levels of the revised Bloom's taxonomy in order, from Remember at the base to Create at the apex.
- Explain how Understand, which constructs meaning by interpreting and summarizing, differs from Remember, which retrieves facts and terminology.
- Classify a learning objective into the level whose description fits its verb and task.
- Differentiate Analyze, which breaks material into parts, from Evaluate, which makes judgments against criteria and standards.
- Write a Create-level learning objective in which students build or modify their own MicroSim.
Target Audience
Instructors who write objectives, assignments and quiz questions for this course, and the college undergraduates who read those objectives. Plan 15 minutes for Activities 1 to 3 and 10 more for Activity 4.
Prerequisites
- Having read at least one learning objective, for example in the course description
- No signal processing background: the activities use the course objectives only as sentences to classify
Activities
Activity 1: Tour the pyramid (5 min). Hover over the six blocks from the base to the apex and write down the processes each description lists. Expected: Remember lists recognizing and recalling; Understand lists seven processes (interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing and explaining); Apply lists executing and implementing; Analyze lists differentiating, organizing and attributing; Evaluate lists checking and critiquing; Create describes putting elements together and reorganizing them into new patterns.
Activity 2: Read the mnemonic (3 min). Compare the title RUAAEC with the blocks from the base up. Expected: the letters are R, U, A, A, E, C. The two A's are Apply (third block) and Analyze (fourth block), so a first letter does not separate them; only the descriptions do.
Activity 3: Classify course objectives (10 min). Open the learning objectives in the course description. For objectives 1, 4, 7, 10, 13 and 16, hover over the levels and choose the description that fits the verb and the task. Expected: objective 1 (Define key signal processing terms...) is Remember, 4 (Explain the importance...) is Understand, 7 (Apply Fourier analysis...) is Apply, 10 (Differentiate between types of filters...) is Analyze, 13 (Assess the effectiveness...) is Evaluate and 16 (Design custom signal processing algorithms...) is Create. These agree with the group headings in the course description.
Activity 4: Write a Create objective (10 min). Hover over Create and read its last sentence. Write one objective about a MicroSim in this book, for example Design a MicroSim that plots the sum of two sine waves with adjustable amplitudes. Swap with a partner, who checks that the verb and task fit the Create description. Expected: an objective whose verb is list or describe fails the check even when the topic is a MicroSim.
Assessment
- Which level forms the base of the pyramid and which forms the apex? Remember is the base and Create is the apex.
- A student is asked to check two filter designs against a specification and justify which one to use. Which level is this? Evaluate: it makes a judgment based on criteria and standards, including checking and critiquing.
- Using the descriptions in the MicroSim, state the difference between Analyze and Evaluate. Analyze breaks material into constituent parts and determines how the parts relate to each other and to the whole; Evaluate judges material against criteria and standards.
- Classify each task: (a) state the definition of a filter from memory, (b) use a given procedure on a new pair of signals, (c) design a new MicroSim. (a) Remember, (b) Apply, (c) Create.
- Why can the first letter of a level in RUAAEC not identify the level? Apply and Analyze both begin with A; the descriptions (executing a procedure versus breaking material into parts) separate them.
Common Misconceptions
The verb in an objective decides its level. The Understand description lists comparing, yet objective 14 in the course description (Compare signal processing outcomes...) is grouped under Evaluating. The same verb can serve different levels, so read the task and the criteria as well as the verb: comparing two descriptions of a filter is different from comparing two designs against a specification.
Only the upper levels matter. The pyramid is widest at the base and stacks every level on Remember. The Apply description speaks of learned material, which must first be remembered and understood, so the higher levels build on the lower ones rather than replace them.
References
- Bloom's taxonomy - Wikipedia - the original 1956 levels and the 2001 revision to Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate and Create
- Benjamin Bloom - Wikipedia - background on the educational psychologist whose name the taxonomy carries
- Educational aims and objectives - Wikipedia - what a learning objective is and how objectives are written
- Instructional design - Wikipedia - how learning objectives guide the design of instruction and assessment
Development Notes
Prompt history
The original page was created from the p5.js starter template and kept the template's sample prompt, which describes a green-circle sketch and not this MicroSim. It is preserved here unchanged.
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Version 2.0.0 ports the sketch from p5.js 1.4.0 to p5.js 2.3.2, renames sketch.js to blooms-taxonomy.js, and
adds touch support, a minimum 14 px text size and a 40 px taller canvas.