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Benjamin Bloom's Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

Preface

Bloom's Revised Taxonomy is an update to the original taxonomy of educational objectives created by Benjamin Bloom and colleagues in 1956. The revised version, developed by a group of cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists, instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists, was published in 2001. It provides a more dynamic framework for classifying educational goals, objectives, and standards, focusing on the development of cognitive skills and critical thinking.

Key Components

Knowledge Dimensions

Factual Knowledge

Basic elements that students must know to be acquainted with a discipline.

Conceptual Knowledge

Understanding interrelationships among the basic elements within a larger structure.

Procedural Knowledge

Knowing how to do something, methods of inquiry, criteria for using skills, algorithms, techniques, and methods.

Metacognitive Knowledge

Awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes.

Cognitive Process Dimensions

Remembering

Retrieving relevant knowledge from long-term memory.

  • Examples: Recognizing, recalling.

Understanding

Constructing meaning from instructional messages, including oral, written, and graphic communication.

  • Examples: Interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, explaining.

Applying

Carrying out or using a procedure in a given situation.

  • Examples: Executing, implementing.

Analyzing

Breaking material into its constituent parts and detecting how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose.

  • Examples: Differentiating, organizing, attributing.

Evaluating

Making judgments based on criteria and standards.

  • Examples: Checking, critiquing.

Creating

Putting elements together to form a novel, coherent whole or make an original product.

  • Examples: Generating, planning, producing.

Benefits of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy

  • Provides a structured framework for educators to formulate curriculum;
  • Helps in designing assessments and evaluations aligned with learning objectives;
  • Enhances the ability to promote higher-order thinking skills among learners;
  • Facilitates clearer communication of educational goals between instructors and students.

Practical Application in Adult Learning

Course Design

Use the taxonomy to design courses that progress from basic to complex cognitive tasks.

Assessment

Create assessments that evaluate not just factual knowledge but also deeper understanding, application, and critical analysis.

Personal Development

Encourage adults to set learning goals that move beyond memorization to higher levels of cognitive function, such as evaluation and creation.

Learning Strategies

Integrate learning activities that address different cognitive processes, enabling a more comprehensive approach to mastering content.

Conclusion

Bloom's Revised Taxonomy offers a valuable tool for both educators and learners to understand and develop cognitive skills systematically. By applying its principles, adult learners can achieve deeper, more meaningful, and transferable understanding and skill mastery.

Reference

Anderson, L. W. & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.) (2001).

A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.

Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.