Using Bloom's Taxonomy to Help Guide Your Teaching
Bloom’s Taxonomy, in simple terms, is a classification system used to define and distinguish different levels of human cognition—i.e., thinking, learning, and understanding. Its original purpose was to give educators a common language to talk about curriculum design and assessment. The belief is that when students learn the basic foundational skills first, they can then progress to more complex types of thinking such as analysis and evaluation.
Bloom’s Taxonomy is a useful tool for teachers in the planning process. When used in education, it allows teachers to create lessons and assessments at multiple levels of difficultly.
Bloom’s Taxonomy Cognitive Domain
The cognitive domain is all about student knowledge and what they know about a certain subject. Each level builds on the last. When thinking about the cognitive domain, it is useful to think of the different levels in regards to active verbs; i.e., what the students will be doing to show their learning.
Remembering: To Memorize Stuff
Describe, Identify, List, Label, Name, Recite
2. Understanding: To Explain Stuff
Match, Visualize, Summarize, Interpret, Rewrite, Restate
3. Applying: To Solve Stuff
Manipulate, Produce, Examine, Change, Modify, Calculate
4. Analyzing: To Question Stuff
Compare, Contrast, Sort, Investigate, Categorize, Infer
5. Evaluate: To Justify Stuff
Assess, Question, Judge, Argue, Defend, Critique
6. Create: To Build Stuff
Invent, Compose, Formulate, Devise, Change, Adapt, Make, Build
How to Use Bloom’s Taxonomy in Your Classroom
One way that you can use Bloom’s in your classroom is to include the action verbs to inform your students of your intentions with the lesson and their learning. We like to create learning targets for each of the standards that we cover in our classrooms.
Another way to use Bloom’s Taxonomy in your classroom is to create lessons with questions or assessments with prompts that encourage deeper thinking. We love using this Bloom’s Taxonomy short story analysis in our classes because it requires critical thinking and moves our students beyond the surface level comprehension questions they might be used to.
Last, we like to use Bloom’s Taxonomy to help us differentiate our lessons. You can use the verbs listed above to help guide your class discussions and improve your students’ higher order thinking skills. You can also level students by ability and meet them at their learning level. All students will be challenged when using the Bloom’s Taxonomy cognitive domains. As students become competent with basic skills, you can then move students to more complex tasks (those that require higher order thinking skills), instead of simply more difficult tasks (those that require more time, skills, or knowledge).
You really can’t go wrong with integrating Boom’s Taxonomy cognitive domains into your classroom.
Happy Teaching!