Bloom's Taxonomy

If you are in the eLearning industry or plan to step into it, you must have heard this concept ID’s talk about all the time- Bloom’s Taxonomy. Another popular theory that runs parallel to it is Gagne’s nine events, but for this post we will learn about Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Benjamin Bloom was an educational psychologist and successfully developed a concept of classification of objectives. Hence, the name Bloom’s Taxonomy, wherein, taxonomy means classification.
Writing objectives for any course is as important as the course itself. Objectives have these features:-

• For Instructional Learners/Course developers: Gives then a direction in which they have to develop the content. Also, gives them a fair understanding of what needs to be developed and how much of it needs to be covered in what level of depth.



• For Learners: Understand what components of a particular concept/principle/fact etc will be covered. It gives them an understanding of what the course covers and if it is relevant to their purpose of going in for (rather in business terms ‘buying’) a course.

Bloom Taxonomy has 6 different classifications. Based on them, you can match or develop the objectives for a particular course. Each stage is presented here with an example and also relevant verbs that can be aligned to the taxonomies.

1. Knowledge: In this classification, focus is on attaining knowledge. A course/module/lesson may be developed with an objective of dissipating information.
   
   
   
   • Example: In this lesson, we will define the Pythagoras theorem.
   
   
   • Verbs: Define, describe, write, recall, label
     (Disclaimer: As a layman or a newbie, one may think all courses are developed for this purpose; however, the objective may vary. Confused? This will be clear as we move further into the classifications.)
   
   



2. Comprehension: In this classification, the focus is on understanding the knowledge attained; interpretation of knowledge.
   
   
   
   • Example: In this lesson, we will understand the Pythagoras theorem.
   
   
   • Verbs: Understand, illustrate, summarize, explain, identify
   
   



3. Application: In this classification, focus is on application of the information.
   
   
   
   • Example: In this lesson, we will solve some problems using the Pythagoras theorem.
   
   
   • Verbs: Compute, solve, use, modify, interpret
   
   



4. Analysis: In this classification, focus is on understanding a particular content chunk. In other words, a huge chunk of content (a concept, principle, etc) is broken into smaller units to understand its organizational structure.
   
   
   
   • Example: In this lesson, you will learn addition of two numbers*.
     (*Part of a course that teaches Mathematics.)
   
   
   • Verbs: Classify, separate, relate, deduce, characterize



5. Synthesis: In this classification, focus is placed on building a new whole. In simple words, parts of content are used to form a new piece of content.
   
   • Example: In this lesson, we will learn construct a pie chart.
   
   
   • Verbs: Construct, create, plan, design, develop



6. Evaluation: In this classification, focus is placed on evaluation of content. Judgements or evaluations are made to calculate the effectiveness of a particular content component.
   
   • Example: In this lesson, we will determine effectives of Pythagoras Theorem and Fermat’s Little Theorem.
   
   
   • Verbs: Judge, rate, rank, prioritize, decide