Benjamin Bloom

Bloom's Taxonomy

Bloom created this taxonomy for categorizing levels of abstraction of questions that commonly occur in educational settings. The taxonomy provides a useful structure in which to categorise test questions, since professors will characteristically ask questions within particular levels, and if you can determine the levels of questions that will appear on your exams, you will be able to study using appropriate strategies.

• Knowledge
  observation and recall of information, knowledge of dates, events, places, knowledge of major ideas, mastery of subject matter
  Question Cues:list, define, tell, describe, identify, show, label, collect, examine, tabulate, quote, name, who, when, where, etc.
  



• Comprehension
  understanding information, grasp meaning, translate knowledge into new context, interpret facts, compare, contrast, order, group, infer causes, predict consequences
  Question Cues: summarize, describe, interpret, contrast, predict, associate, distinguish, estimate, differentiate, discuss, extend
  



• Application
  use information, use methods, concepts, theories in new situations, solve problems using required skills or knowledge
  Questions Cues: apply, demonstrate, calculate, complete, illustrate, show, solve, examine, modify, relate, change, classify, experiment, discover
  



• Analysis
  seeing patterns, organization of parts, recognition of hidden meanings, identification of components
  Question Cues:analyze, separate, order, explain, connect, classify, arrange, divide, compare, select, explain, infer
  



• Synthesis
  use old ideas to create new ones, generalize from given facts, relate knowledge from several areas, predict, draw conclusions
  Question Cues:combine, integrate, modify, rearrange, substitute, plan, create, design, invent, what if?, compose, formulate, prepare, generalize, rewrite
  



• Evaluation
  compare and discriminate between ideas, assess value of theories, presentations, make choices based on reasoned argument, verify value of evidence, recognize subjectivity
  Question Cues assess, decide, rank, grade, test, measure, recommend, convince, select, judge, explain, discriminate, support, conclude, compare, summarize

http://www.coun.uvic.ca/learn/program/hndouts/bloom.html

Bloom’s taxonomy was originally created for categorizing levels of concepts commonly used in schools. Taxonomy provides a useful structure that professors can structure their exam questions around. The taxonomy has 6 levels all of which increase with difficulty. Knowledge is the most broad and easier type of question and the question difficulty increases going onto the highest level Evaluation and synthesis. Taxonomy is very useful not only for structuring exam questions, but for the structure of a lesson. It is especially useful for the structure of a lesson for example an ICT class. You start out with basic knowledge and as the lesson progresses, so does the difficulty of the lesson. The taxonomy is extremely useful when it comes to assessing and reporting students. It makes it easier to grade students by putting them into groups/ranks. It can also help control behaviour of the students who seem to be acting out. This may be because they are bored, the teacher can give them harder work and more complex questions. I find Bloom very helpful with structuring a lesson, at the beginning starting with broader information, then further into the lesson you can delve further into the taxonomy getting harder as the lesson progresses.