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Bloom's Taxonomy
Copyright © 2005
Adam Waxler
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What is
blooms taxonomy and how can a
teacher apply blooms taxonomy
to
classroom lesson plans?
Blooms
taxonomy was originally created
Benjamin Bloom for categorizing
and classifying levels of
intellectual learning that
commonly occur in the classroom
setting. Blooms taxonomy
contains three overlapping
domains: the cognitive,
psychomotor, and affective.
Within the cognitive domain
Benjamin Bloom identified six
levels that have become commonly
known as blooms taxonomy. |
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The six levels of
blooms taxonomy, from lowest to highest,
are: knowledge, comprehension,
application, analysis, synthesis, and
evaluation. These different levels of
blooms taxonomy have become an extremely
useful guide for teachers in planning
classroom lesson plans and classroom
objectives.
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Bloom's
Taxonomy Verb Chart |
| Knowledge (Recalling
learned material) |
recall, underline, list.
name, record, label, cluster,
match, memorize, define, arrange |
| Comprehension
(Understanding the material) |
understand, show, summarize,
explain, describe,
demonstrate, review, cite,
restate, locate |
| Application (Using
the material) |
apply, select, model,
organize, illustrate, utilize,
choose, imitate, demonstrate,
use |
| Analysis (Breaking
material down to increase
understanding) |
analyze, compare, contrast,
classify, map, characterize,
divide, break down, choose,
examine |
| Synthesis (Reshaping
material into a new form) |
construct, speculate,
design, compose, create,
develop, invent, blend, propose,
formulate |
| Evaluation (Judging
the worth of material) |
evaluate, convince, argue,
judge, criticize, rate, measure,
persuade, assess, recommend |
It is vitally
important that teachers do not just
teach lower order thinking skills at the
bottom of blooms taxonomy such as
knowledge and comprehension, but also
teach higher order thinking skills at
the top of blooms taxonomy such as
evaluation. When students are
evaluating and judging and using the
higher order thinking skills of blooms
taxonomy they are more likely to retain
information, perform better on
standardized tests, and most
importantly, achieve the ultimate goal
of becoming lifelong learners.
There are many ways
in which teachers can use blooms
taxonomy to help create more focused
lesson plans and help students use
higher order thinking skills. By
following the blooms taxonomy chart
above teachers can pinpoint what they
will teach and how they will go about
teaching it. For example, take a social
studies lesson plan on the use of the
Atomic Bomb to end WWII. A teacher
could teach this lesson by having
students read and memorize important key
terms and facts. However, even if the
teacher uses a variety of teaching
strategies to help increase reading
comprehension, the problem is the
teacher is only focusing on the lower
order thinking skills in blooms
taxonomy. The students may be able to
regurgitate the information back on the
test, but the student is not using the
higher order thinking skills that will
help that student retain the information
for the long-term and, more importantly,
help the student learn to think for
himself.
A simply way to
teach the same lesson, but also address
the higher order thinking skills of
blooms taxonomy is to simply have the
students write a paragraph
“evaluating/judging” Truman’s decision
to drop the atomic bomb. The teacher
can still have the students include the
key terms from the lesson in the
paragraph, but by having the students
also make an argument and support that
argument the students are also
addressing the higher order thinking
skills of blooms taxonomy.
Adam Waxler is a middle school
social studies teacher, teacher mentor,
and author of
eTeach: A Teacher Resource for Learning
the Strategies of Master Teachers.
He also publishes the Teaching Tips
Machine, a free weekly newsletter.
Go to
http://www.teaching-tips-machine.com
to get more teaching tips on blooms
taxonomy |
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