Bloom's Taxonomy

Continued from: http://pvrguymale.blogspot.com/2011/07/one-of-most-widely-cited-yet-least-read.html

Categories in the cognitive domain of Bloom's Taxonomy

Skills in the cognitive domain revolve around knowledge, comprehension, and critical thinking of a particular topic. Traditional education tends to emphasize the skills in this domain, particularly the lower-order objectives.
There are six levels in the taxonomy, moving through the lowest order processes to the highest:
Knowledge
Exhibit memory of previously-learned materials by recalling facts, terms, basic concepts and answers
Comprehension
Demonstrative understanding of facts and ideas by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and stating main ideas
Application
Using new knowledge. Solve problems to new situations by applying acquired knowledge, facts, techniques and rules in a different way
Analysis
Examine and break information into parts by identifying motives or causes. Make inferences and find evidence to support generalizations
Synthesis
Compile information together in a different way by combining elements in a new pattern or proposing alternative solutions
Evaluation
Present and defend opinions by making judgments about information, validity of ideas or quality of work based on a set of criteria

Affective
Skills in the affective domain describe the way people react emotionally and their ability to feel another living thing's pain or joy. Affective objectives typically target the awareness and growth in attitudes, emotion, and feelings.
There are five levels in the affective domain moving through the lowest order processes to the highest:
Receiving
The lowest level; the student passively pays attention. Without this level no learning can occur.
Responding
The student actively participates in the learning process, not only attends to a stimulus; the student also reacts in some way.
Valuing
The student attaches a value to an object, phenomenon, or piece of information.
Organizing
The student can put together different values, information, and ideas and accommodate them within his/her own schema; comparing, relating and elaborating on what has been learned.
Characterizing
The student holds a particular value or belief that now exerts influence on his/her behaviour so that it becomes a characteristic.

Psychomotor
Skills in the psychomotor domain describe the ability to physically manipulate a tool or instrument like a hand or a hammer. Psychomotor objectives usually focus on change and/or development in behavior and/or skills. Bloom and his colleagues never created subcategories for skills in the psychomotor domain, but since then other educators have created their own psychomotor taxonomies.

ONE OF THE MOST WIDELY CITED YET LEAST READ BOOKS IN AMERICAN EDUCATION

Benjamin Samuel Bloom (1913 –1999) was a American educational psychologist who made contributions to the classification of educational objectives and to the theory of mastery-learning. He also directed a research team which conducted a major investigation into the development of exceptional talent whose results are relevant to the question of eminence, exceptional achievement, and greatness.

Bloom's Taxonomy is a classification of learning objectives within education proposed in 1956 by a committee of educators chaired by Benjamin Bloom who also edited the first volume of the standard text, Taxonomy of educational objectives: the classification of educational goals (referred to as simply "the Handbook" below). Although named for Bloom, the publication followed a series of conferences from 1949 to 1953, which were designed to improve communication between educators on the design of curricula and examinations.

It refers to a classification of the different objectives that educators set for students (learning objectives). Bloom's Taxonomy divides educational objectives into three "domains": Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor (sometimes loosely described as knowing/head, feeling/heart and doing/hands respectively). Within the domains, learning at the higher levels is dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and skills at lower levels. A goal of Bloom's Taxonomy is to motivate educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more holistic form of education.

A mythology has grown around the taxonomy, possibly due to many people learning about the taxonomy through second hand information. Bloom himself considered the Handbook, "one of the most widely cited yet least read books in American education".

Key to understanding the taxonomy and its revisions, variations, and addenda over the years is an understanding that the original Handbook in 1956 was intended only to focus on one of the three domains (as indicated in the domain specification in title: The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Handbook I: Cognitive Domain), but there was expectation that additional material would be generated for the other domains (as indicated in the numbering of the handbook in the title).

In 1971 he said, "Ideally each major field should have its own taxonomy in its own language - more detailed, closer to the special language and thinking of its experts, reflecting its own appropriate sub-divisions and levels of education, with possible new categories, combinations of categories and omitting categories as appropriate.”