An Essay on Bloom's Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Levels

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a hierarchical classification system of levels of human thought. In this respect (that of being a hierarchical classification system, that is), it is similar to other taxonomical systems, like the classification system for living things used in biology. Although it was originally conceived of in the 1950s (Forehand, 2008), a revised version of the system is widely used in education even today. It is not generally used for classifying individual thoughts into one category or another, though, but instead to plan lessons that are designed to challenge the students at different levels and to encourage the students to think at the higher, as well as just the lower, levels when they are engaging with their class materials.
The author of the system was Benjamin S. Bloom, who seemed to have a lifelong fascination with the nature of thinking. All in all, he authored or co-authored 18 books on the subject. (Forehand, 2008) When his taxonomy system for levels of thinking was first published, the idea was not paid very close attention to. However, the system caught on, and is now one of the most widely applied ideas in education. (Forehand, 2008)
During the 1990s, an updating of the traditional system occurred. This revision was spearheaded by Lorin Anderson, a former student of Bloom’s who wanted to make her teacher’s taxonomic system more relevant to the 21st century student and teacher. The revised system was published in 2001, and includes a few subtle but significant changes. This new system was intended to be a much more broadly applicable and useful tool for planning instruction. (Forehand, 2008)
First, there are the changes in terminology to consider. The original system had six categories (listed here in the order of lowest to highest): Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation. The new system also has six categories, but the names of them are all verbs instead of nouns. The revised categories are (in the same order): Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating. (Forehand, 2008) There are also real structural changes, in addition to the terminological change (which essentially amounted to changing the names from noun form to verb form.) In addition to the levels of the top tow tiers of the hierarchy being switched, there was also a second dimension added to what had originally been only a one-dimensional system (Forehand, 2008)
The Revised Taxonomy has, in addition to the hierarchical system of levels of thought, a Revised Taxonomy Table matrix which can be used for planning activities which specifically target desired levels of thought. (Foreman, 2008) Using this chart and the six level hierarchy of thought, one can easily design a lesson plan that is both appropriate for the general average developmental level of the students one is teaching, but which also appeals simultaneously to multiple levels of thought. This would not only accommodate the individual differences in students’ ability and level of development that are bound to occur, but it also would encourage students to learn the higher levels of critical thinking while doing a task that they are already fully capable of with their current level of skill.
For instance, a teacher could prepare a lesson about Aesop’s fable about Mercury and the Woodsman. The story could be read aloud in class, by either the teacher or, if the students are a little older, by a volunteer from the class. Illustrations could be shown (if desired) of the Woodsman, Mercury, the original axe the Woodsman lost in the water, the gold and silver axes Mercury pretended to have found for him (to see if he would be dishonest), and then of the Woodsman receiving all three axes in the end for honestly identifying his ordinary axe as the one he had lost. Then, after the story time presentation was over, there could be a question and answer session to see how well the students understood the story.
The teacher could begin by asking the students to essentially repeat parts of the story, by asking them which events happened after what. They could then move on to asking more complicated questions about what exactly Mercury had been trying to do to the Woodsman, why he was doing this, and why the Woodsman was rewarded in the end. The class could then be broken up into small groups in which they made charts of situations in which it had paid to be honest for them in the past, or of situations in which people had been caught lying and had suffered for it.
The next day, after a recap of the story, the class could break up into the same groups and write short skits with the same themes as the fable. The assignment would be essentially to modernize the story and place it in a context they could relate to their lives. This would require that the students evaluate the themes of the fable while they are planning the plot of their skit, and then create an original work of their own (which they would then ideally present to the rest of the class.)
This example shows how (probably for older elementary aged students) the same lesson could first focus on the more basic levels of thinking, and then push the students to achieve the higher levels to the greatest extent that they are able to. Planning lessons like this, that encourage students to think about content at multiple levels at once, is exactly what Bloom’s Taxonomy is used for (and exactly what the current revised version of the system was intended for.


Bibliography

1) Forehand, Mary (January 12th, 2008) Bloom’s Taxonomy from Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching, and Technology Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Bloom%27s_Taxonomy