ELearning/Foundations/Language of learning
Bloom's Taxonomy was originally created by Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues in the 1950s as a framework for understanding and communicating about learning outcomes (Bloom, et. al., 1956). It has been revised and expanded upon multiple times, with the most recent published version coming in 2001 (Anderson& Krathwohl). The uses for the taxonomy extend well beyond learning objectives, providing a common language to aid in the selection of learning content, learning activities, discussion questions, assignments, assessments and more.
As such, the taxonomy (a classification system) provides the terminology for discussing teaching and learning in all its varieties. Once you grasp and become comfortable with it, the taxonomy becomes a sort of shorthand for many foundational concepts and principles within the instructional design and teaching field.
The Basic Bloom’s
As used today, Bloom’s taxonomy is made of two primary dimensions: domain and level.
Domain describes the varieties of human experience in which learning occurs. Learning taxonomies have been described for the cognitive, affective, psychomotor, interpersonal, and perceptual domains.
Level describes the degree of learning, a hierarchy of mastery ranging from simple to complex, superficial to deep, isolated to integrated. It is important to note that the hierarchy is intended to communicate the need for learners to progress from the lower to the higher levels. In other words, lower-order objectives should be attained before moving to each succeeding level. Prerequisite knowledge and skill must be attained in order to successfully complete the current level. The number of levels varies among the domains, partly because the phenomena within each domain vary, and partly because different authors have taken different approaches to describing the levels.
The Cognitive domain
Most people, when they think of Bloom’s Taxonomy, think of the cognitive domain, as shown in figure 2. In fact, the cognitive domain was the only domain originally articulated by Bloom and his colleagues, and this focus has continued with the most recent edition.
The cognitive domain is characterized by intellectual abilities and skills, from simple recognition of facts through increasingly more complex and abstract levels of mental operations. From highest to lowest, the six levels (with sample verbs):
- Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganize elements into a new pattern or structure (generate, plan, produce, establish, invent, form, develop, formulate). See #Creativity below.
- Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards (checking, detecting, monitoring, testing, critiquing, judging).
- Analyzing: Breaking down a problem, concept, system, or information into their constituent parts; distinguishing among pieces or components and describing their purposes and relationships (compare, organize, deconstruct, outline, structure, integrate, reverse engineer, categorize, metatag).
- Applying: Implementing or using knowledge in a concrete way in a given situation to solve a problem, make a decision, or answer a question (execute, implement, solve, decide, demonstrate, show, answer, construct).
- Understanding: Constructing meaning from instructional messages, including verbal, written, and graphical communication (describe, explain, interpret, summarize, infer, compare, identify, locate, select, translate, paraphrase).
- Remembering: Retrieving relevant knowledge from long-term memory, through recognition or recall (recognize, define, list, recall, repeat, reproduce, duplicate).
What is lesser known is that Bloom’s successors (Anderson, et. al., 2001) differentiate the cognitive domain into additional dimensions: process and knowledge. The illustration above presents only the cognitive process dimension – the complexity and depth of processing. The knowledge dimension describes types of knowledge, or “ways of knowing.”
- Factual: Declarative knowledge generally accepted as fact (e.g., the earth circles the sun; its orbit being approximately 365 earth days in duration); information that can be learned by rote. Within a discipline, the basic elements students must know to be acquainted with the discipline.
- Conceptual: Explanatory knowledge that summarizes major ideas and their constituent parts. As such, conceptual language frequently refers to interrelationships, functions, meaning and the like that enable basic elements to function together.
- Procedural: Knowledge of rules, algorithms, and procedures. How to do something, the criteria for using skills, algorithms, techniques, and methods.
- Meta-Cognitive: Knowledge of cognition in general as well as awareness of one’s own cognitive processes. This includes strategic knowledge, conditional knowledge, and self-knowledge.
Embedded within the above types, the following are important aspects of any sort of knowledge, especially within the context of expertise.
- Functional knowledge: practical, applied knowledge obtained through experience characterized by skilled performance and execution. For example, a student with metacognitive skills is able to set learning goals, decide on effective ways to reach those goals, monitor his progress, and make adjustments as needed (Clark & Mayer, 2011).
- Conditional knowledge: also termed situated knowledge, the ability to use one's knowledge appropriately in specific contexts.
When we put the two together, we arrive at a cognitive domain taxonomy table with the two dimensions of knowledge and cognitive process (Krathwohl, 2002). The dashed line connotes the division between lower-order and higher-order thinking, discussed later.
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| 3. The cognitive domain knowledge and process dimensions |
You may also be interested in Webb's Depth of Knowledge model, an alternative though similar approach to the knowledge domain.
Additional domains
Other learning domains were acknowledged by Bloom and his successors, but not directly addressed. Others have taken on the task for the psychomotor, affective, interpersonal, and perceptual domains. There are surely others, but they have not gained general acceptance.
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| 4. Additional learning domains |
Psychomotor domain
The psychomotor domain describes conscious movement of the body and its parts. It is associated with physical skills such as speed, dexterity, grace, use of instruments, expressive movement, and use of the body in dance and athletics (Rovai, et. al., 2009). A number of versions of the psychomotor domain have been articulated (Gagné & Briggs, 1979; Dave, 1970; Harrow, 1972; Kilber, 1974; and Simpson, 1966). We will use a combination of Kilber and Simpson because of their complementary approaches. From higher order to lower order:
- Origination: The ability to create new forms of performances (compose, choreograph, orchestrate, produce, coach). See #Creativity below.
- Adaptation: The ability to alter performances in response to new circumstances (modify, update, syncopate, convert, adapt).
- Performance: Execute a complex pattern of coordinated movements (carry out, complete, portray, demonstrate, present, construct, assemble).
- Coordination: Synchronized movements of the limbs and head (type, lift, carry, dance, position, connect, align).
- Movement: Elementary actions of the limbs and head (lift, reach, point, swing, walk, turn).
Affective domain
Kearny (1994) describes affective learning as “an increasing internalization of positive attitudes toward the content or subject matter.” The affective domain addresses interests, opinions, emotions, attitudes, values, and motivation. They focus on the development of attitudes and behavior rather than intellectual abilities. The five levels associated with affective learning, from higher order to lower order:
- Characterizing: Commitment to and identification with a coherent, internally consistent value system (identify, commit, enlist, perpetuate, dedicate, devote, affirm, observe).
- Advocating: Speaking or arguing for a value, attitude, behavior, ideology, or belief system (promote, exhort, sermonize, recommend, suggest, champion, propose, encourage, prescribe, uphold, espouse).
- Valuing: Perceiving to be worthwhile, useful, helpful, meaningful, or justifiable (regard, respect, recognize, esteem, venerate).
- Responding: Acquiescence, willingness and satisfaction in reacting to information; a willingness to think and talk about information one has received (list, complete, obey, volunteer, record, select, write, discuss).
- Receiving: Willingness to pay attention, consider, or attend to information (listen, read, view, consider, meditate, ponder, reflect, contemplate, speculate).
Interpersonal domain
The interpersonal domain is the world of relationships, relating to and interacting with others. It is characterized by patterns of behavior and attitudinal dispositions toward other people and is context specific in that acceptable interaction patterns differ within cultures and subcultures (Fournier, et. al., 2008). Learning to communicate with and relate to others individually and in groups is essential to success in all inter-human realms. Examples of interpersonal skills include listening, speaking, writing, non-verbal communication, assertiveness, managing interpersonal stress, group decision making and problem solving, and understanding the causes of communication failures. The six levels of interpersonal communication, from higher order to lower order:
- Summarizing: Restating in a compact form the content of previous or ongoing discussions and considerations in a form acceptable to others.
- Disagreeing: Providing a direct, conscious declaration of difference of opinion or criticism of another’s ideas in a manner that forestalls defensiveness.
- Including: Inviting and involving others in a discussion, conversation, or plan.
- Supporting: Extending, developing, or enhancing another person, their proposals and ideas.
- Proposing: Putting forward a new concept, suggestion, or course of action in a manner that promotes consideration and acceptance.
- Seeking and Giving: Asking for and offering facts, opinions, and clarification with others.
Note how the “manner” or “form” in which the interpersonal conduct is executed is integral to the successful outcome of any strategic behavior. At the least, interpersonal behavior must conform to the social norms of the group to an acceptable degree.
Perceptual domain
Perceptual learning is the least commonly understood of the learning domains. Pattern recognition, an important skill within connectivism, is a perceptual skill. Data analysis, the process of discerning meaningful patterns among highly abstracted digital data, has become an essential skill in the age of Big Data. It has also been implicated as a primary constituent of expertise. Experts are able to deal with information more efficiently and effectively than novices because they are able to “see” patterns and underlying structure in information. They are able to pay attention only to the bits of information they need while ignoring the rest. They are also able to identify features not directly at hand in the presenting problem, but which can be inferred from the situation (Geller, 2011).
As discussed elsewhere, there are two important limitations of perceptual learning in that it is very task specific and occurs mostly at the nonverbal level, and so is difficult to put into words, explain, and discuss. It can be learned, however. See Perceptual skills training in the learning activities article.
The following taxonomy of perceptual learning is from Moore (1967). From higher order to lower order:
- Perceptive Action: Sensitive differentiation and accurate observation enabling diagnostic, explanatory, and predictive ability to guide performance. Radiologists are able to see subtle and fine details in x-rays in order to diagnose physical abnormalities.
- Perception of Meaning: Awareness of the significance or value of a behavior, object or symbol, including the discovery of new relationships, cause-effect relationships, generalizations, and implications enabling decision making and problem solving. A near-universal human skill is that of perceiving the emotional state of others based on facial and bodily gestures, especially the eyes. Financial analysts recognize that some companies perform better than most during recessions, thus being able to advise investors.
- Symbol Perception: Awareness of percepts as denotative of meaning and form. The ability to name percepts and assign them to appropriate classes, to define similarities and differences between percepts. Recognizing the difference between the letters U and V, or the difference between C-sharp and B-flat.
- Figure Perception: Awareness of percepts (magnitude, form, location, position, etc.) and their relationships to each other and the whole. Awareness of relationships between the parts and the background, or between the stimulus and its context. Figure-ground perceptual organization.
- Sensation: Awareness of the qualities of a stimulus perceived through the senses (hue, pitch, odor, etc. coming from the various sensory modalities [sight, hearing, touch, pressure, taste, smell, etc.]).
Perceptual learning, then, is a process of gaining acuity in perception within a domain and using it to diagnose, explain, and predict to an exquisite degree.
The complete taxonomy
Here we see all the domains and levels combined into a single table. We will see the uses for the table in just awhile.
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| 5. The complete Bloom's Taxonomy as defined here |
Reflecting and extending learning
An important but often overlooked feature of the learning hierarchies is that the higher levels actually extend learning beyond the content, as opposed to the lower levels, which reflect learning of current knowledge and skill. Notice how the bottom three levels are based on what is already known – instructions and questions ask students to reiterate or demonstrate what they have learned – the activities reinforce learning but do not extend it.
Imagine, too, how a discussion or activity might proceed. In a discussion, one or two students would post original messages and others would pipe in with, “Yeah, that’s right,” or add to the original message until the correct answer is reached. And that’s about it. The same is true for learning activities – they end when learners have correctly demonstrated learning of the content - which can be quite complex. This is not to disparage lower-order learning, but to point out its limitations.
When we move into the higher levels, we enter the realm of higher-order thinking – self-generated reasoning, critical thinking, problem solving, and creative thinking (Barak, 2009; Brookhart, 2010). The learner is creating meaning and solutions from knowledge where they are not absolute or fixed, but explored, negotiated, and constructed - constructivism. These higher levels represent the higher-order thinking we want our students to demonstrate. They are reflected in universal learning outcomes (see also Common Core Standards) one and two: intellectual breadth and lifelong learning, and inquiry and critical thinking (General Education Advisory Committee, 2010).
As we mentioned before, the dashed vertical line in the taxonomy table provides a reminder of the transition from lower-order to higher-order thinking.
Applying the taxonomy
The “language of learning” we have presented is likely not completely new to you. What may be new is how this language is organized around learning, a specific purpose just as the language of mathematics or mythology – or wine. Once we have mastered the language of learning, it can be a very useful tool. This section looks at five uses that together help you provide a well-articulated, targeted, aligned, and complete learning experience for students.
Communicating learning goals: You may have noted that lists of action verbs have accompanied many of the levels of learning. Learners who have learned are able to demonstrate the appropriate level of mastery by doing something. The essence of well-articulated learning goals and objectives is to pair “doing” with “something,” verb with noun phrase. For example, “Describing” the “structure of the atom.” Certainly, all learning is not so easily described. However, it can always be done. Refer to the Taxonomy Action Verbs section at the end of this article.
Ensuring Complete Instruction: An explicit feature of Bloom’s taxonomy is the hierarchy of mastery communicated by the different levels. Complete instruction within a course should generally take learners through the levels of mastery, beginning at the lowest level and continuing to the highest. If this is not the case, lower levels not addressed in the course are necessarily prerequisites and need to be identified as such.
Example: Soil Mechanics is an important requirement for the civil engineering degree. Learning objectives include:
- Describe the fundamental concepts of the mechanics of granular materials.
- Perform basic tests of soil properties and behavior.
- Determine the suitability of various materials for specific purposes.
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| 7. Soil mechanics learning objectives |
Comment: It looks as though two additional objectives are appropriate here at the “understanding” and “analysis” levels. An objective focused on understanding would look something like, “Summarize the factors that together describe the state of granular material.” For analysis, we could use “determine the tests necessary for evaluating material for specific purposes.”
Targeting learning objectives: Courses should be targeted at specific groups of learners, from beginner, to intermediate, advanced, and expert. Intimate familiarity, or expertise, within a realm of knowledge can make it difficult to sort out content appropriately targeted at specific audiences. Use the levels of learning to determine appropriate learning objectives, and thus content.
Example: Within a nutrition series of courses, at what point should students be able to:
- Understand the role of diet in disease processes
- Explain the emotional and social aspects of food and eating for humans
- Diagnose the contribution of diet to individuals with chronic diseases
- Examine how food industry practices impact the American diet
- Describe the nutritional value of food groups
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| 8. Ordering learning objectives by level |
Comment: This example is not intended to be accurate, but rather illustrative.
Targeting Relevant Learning Domains: Mastery within a particular human endeavor is most likely obtained through multiple learning paths. The cognitive domain is relevant to all areas, but there are also other domains that, if ignored, will result in an incomplete education. Consider all learning domains and test for relevancy, and then create learning objectives for each.
Example: One skill necessary to many occupations is the art of negotiation. A complete course in negotiation would need to include at least a basic knowledge of the purpose and process of negotiation. Students need to understand their own emotional makeup and interpersonal style and how they relate to successful negotiation. They certainly need to become practiced in artful interpersonal communication. We could even say they need to be introduced to the subtleties of nonverbal behavior and the messages they send. How might this look through the lenses of learning taxonomies?
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| 9. Negotiation skills are multifaceted |
Comment: We can see that the skill of negotiation is both a cognitive and interpersonal skill.
Identifying Supporting Objectives: Once you have identified the target learning objectives, you can then identify the subordinate knowledge, skills, and abilities required before learners are prepared to master the final outcomes. These “helper” objectives must either be taught within your learning program or declared as prerequisites.
Example: What does it take to master the learning objective of diagnosing a mental disorder (the terminal objective T)? Among other things:
- Students must first learn the boundaries of “normal” human experience (helper objective 1 H1).
- How to differentiate symptoms (H2).
- How to perform psychological tests, both the mechanics and interpersonal skills (H3a and H3b).
- How to interpret psychological and medical tests (H4).
- Not stated but true, students must also believe in the validity and reliability of mental illness classifications and psychological and medical tests (H5).
Comment: It is immediately obvious that the learning involved here is quite advanced, even if we didn’t know the objective. There is a lot of prerequisite knowledge that must be mastered before this level of learning can begin.
Alignment
Without alignment between course components and the desired learning outcomes, your course may provide for a lot of learning. However, it will exist without cohesion, purpose or, in the end, meaning. Formal learning, by its nature, must be focused. Because alignment is easier to talk about than it is to achieve, we need a tool for the purpose. As it turns out, learning objectives, their domains and levels help keep us focused as we design and teach worthwhile courses.
- Content. An old truism in the training field is to “give ‘em just enough to accomplish the objective and nothing more.” Within education, our objectives tend to be broader and deeper than in training. The lesson, however, is worth considering. You need to contemplate two criteria when deciding what to leave in and what to leave out: (1) does the material direct student attention and effort toward course outcomes, or is it more of “sidebar” interest? When this is the case, we don’t necessarily have to throw it out, but best practice dictates that we designate it as supplementary or optional.
- Learning Activities. You already know that learning activities should contribute to the accomplishment of learning goals. Where the taxonomies add value is in evaluating whether they focus on the relevant domains and levels. Do your activities build competence in knowledge and skill that lead to course goals?
- Discussion Questions. Student discussions are ripe with potential if they are managed well. Use quizzes and such to test for lower-level knowledge. Create discussion questions that require higher-order thinking, give and take, and negotiation. It’s much easier when you use the cognitive hierarchies to guide your discussion questions. For specific ideas, see Discussions.
- Assignments. Various types of assignments are great for application of learning content, for critiquing various approaches to the subject matter, and for extending student learning into unexplored territory. The key, as with all the others, is to accurately target your assignments to the appropriate domain and level. See Assignments for a more in-depth look.
- Assessment. You understand that assessment of student learning is more than tests and quizzes. Learning activities, discussions, and assignments can all serve as demonstrations of learning – as long as we create grading rubrics to identify what it is we’re assessing. Even so, quizzes and tests remain valuable tools for both instructor and students. Well-written test questions can succinctly assess for learning in any domain or level. The taxonomies provide specific guidance for creating test items. Refer to Assessments for that guidance.
Example: My objective for learners is to apply the taxonomies just discussed to their own course. Here are the learning activities I will assign:
- Read the section of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
- Matching activity: Draw a line from the term on the left to its description on the right.
- Discussion question: “Do you see the taxonomies as a useful tool for describing expected learning outcomes and aligning your learning activities with your objectives? Why or why not?”
- Assignment: Design a course for your subject matter.
- Quiz: Multiple choice and true/false questions about the terms used in the taxonomies and their definitions.
Do my activities align with and support my learning objective? Let’s see.
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| 10. Do my learning activities and objectives align? |
After having classified my learning activities, I see that I have two “remembering” activities (2, 5), one “valuing” activity (3), and a great big “creation” activity (4). The “reading” activity (1) can’t really be classified here because the activity isn’t asking students to “do” anything with the reading content.
Do my learning activities align with and lead to the accomplishment of my objective? Activities 2 and 5 contribute something, but are redundant in that they are both assessing for the same low-level of processing. Why not bump up the quiz a bit to ask students to demonstrate understanding? Then there is activity 4, which is way out of line with the learning objective and the other activities. It comes out of left field. It does not align with or contribute to the objective. A novice mistake.
Creativity
"We cannot control creativity or bend it to our will. Neither can we trap it within the confines of a definition. We can, however, uncover some of its disguises." David Peat (2000) proposes three useful aspects of creativity that we might not have considered.
- Making something new, original, or unexpected
- Renewing and sustaining what already exists
- Healing and making things whole
Overwhelmingly, "making it new" is associated with creativity. But this take has limitations that have become apparent in the 21st century. "In the first decades of the twentieth century, the new was genuinely intoxicating. Today, it is merely addictive. We hardly notice that we can't do without speed, novelty, and the unexpected. Television programs made for young children are constructed with scenes that change every minute or so because experts believe that a child's attention span is so short that novelty must always be present. As a result, we condition a new generation of television viewers to be ever more accepting of change. It is even said that computers and computer games are speeding up children's nervous systems so that the demand for change is going to increase. The problem arises when things get out of balance and we confuse simple novelty with creativity and stasis with its absence" (Peat, p. 7).
"Creativity does not always mean the production of the new and different; it can also mean an act of renewal and revitalization" (p. 11). This aspect of creativity is especially evident in music, fashion, home furnishings, and the auto industry; styles come and go but often come back with modern updates. Established artists and musicians often deliberately work within the confines of a traditional method as a means of expanding their creativity. Woodworking, dance, and poetic forms are just a few traditions that can be renewed and translated into new forms.
Healing as creativity may not be obvious, but it may be the most important. Within the body, healing restores and makes whole when damage has been done. From healing broken bones to destroying invading germs, the processes of healing are varied and miraculous. Families, homes, cities, and societies also break. It takes unusual insight and courage to identify and confront these breaks. Within organizations and societies, bureaucracies become rigid, people become lethargic, and businesses fail without periodic renewal. Further, healing may at times involve removing arbitrary divisions and mergers, or even breaking things apart and giving the former parts their own autonomy.
| A Creative Solution?
Gambling Is the Bait. Savings are the Jackpot. (New York Times, August 31, 2014, p. 1, 4) A growing number of credit unions and nonprofit groups are using prize-linked savings accounts to encourage their customers to save. "These accounts treat every $25 deposit as a ticket in a prizewinning raffle. The idea is to offer the thrill of gambling without the risk. Even perennial losers keep their savings." An organization operating in five states has logged 50,000 accounts with a total of $94 million in savings. State laws have been changed to accommodate the accounts. The Heritage Foundation reported in 2011 that such an approach helps achieve a "right-brain, left-brain" balance. |
Summary
Bloom’s and the other taxonomies provide us with a common language we can use to articulate the learning outcomes we seek to accomplish, as well as targeting all our teaching activities toward their accomplishment. As such, it is useful throughout all phases of designing and teaching your subject area.
Visit Iowa State University's excellent look at the cognitive domain. Be sure to move your cursor around the taxonomy. http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/RevisedBlooms1.html
Tool: Taxonomy Action Verbs
The core of a useful learning objective includes an action verb and an object of the verb. "People take action." The action verbs below can help you pair up action verbs and objects. Think practical, real world actions, like this:
- Give a speech
- Dig a hole
- Prepare a proposal
- Calculate the cost of dinner
- Carry out a procedure
- Talk with The President
- Select the correct answer
Remember
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Understand
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Apply
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Analyze
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Evaluate
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Create
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