What is Bloom’s Taxonomy?

Benjamin Bloom in 1956, introduced the concept of “Bloom's taxonomy” to the world. It was created to provide a common language for trainers and educators to discuss and exchange different learning and assessment ideas.

Today, it's mostly used to assess learning on different cognitive levels, but the application isn’t limited to that. Bloom’s taxonomy can also help us identify specific learning outcomes.

The main goal? To encourage the users to think higher-order thoughts that stem from lower-level cognition. Let’s learn more about what is Bloom's taxonomy and how it applies to e-learning.

What is Bloom’s Taxonomy?

Bloom categorized the cognitive part of learning into different levels according to their complexity and richness. So it’s like a pyramid where the level of complexity increases up top.

Following this framework helps educators and trainers specify and keep in check the learners’ progress and the expected outcomes from the course.

Bloom identified six key categories of cognition: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

Thankfully, since we had the 2001 upgrade to the verbs, we can more easily identify the level or pace of our learners. These action verbs apply to different activities.

After learning what is Bloom’s taxonomy, let's take a look at the six elements of Bloom's taxonomy for learning.

Remember

Remembering means recognizing, recalling, or retrieving the information or knowledge from your past memory.

The learners should be able to define or list the core concepts. They must learn the basic content and recall certain concepts.

Understand

Understanding is the ability to construct a meaning using written, verbal, and graphic messages. Here we employ skills like interpretation, exemplifying, summarizing, classifying, even inferring and comparing.

This is one of the basic stages where the learners explain, describe, or discuss the content.

Apply

In this stage, the person executes or implements the learned knowledge. They solve, predict, demonstrate, or model behavior. They should be able to conduct calculations on their own and solve certain problems.

Analyze

The material is broken down into different constituents to see how each relates to the other. 

The learners should be able to classify, narrow down, or criticize the content. They should have a deeper understanding of the course structure, and must be able to distinguish the contents from one another.

Evaluate

Evaluating means making a judgment based on certain standards and preset criteria.

The individual must support, judge, compare, contrast, and argue to be able to convince others. It means the learner should know which content to apply where to solve a certain problem.

Create

In the last stage, the elements are put together to form a functional whole. They are organized to form new patterns or structures by planning or producing.

In learning, it means that by the end of the learning lesson, the learners should be able to design and execute a plan or strategy to solve a world problem.

What is Bloom’s Taxonomy in Course Design

Bloom’s taxonomy can be a very valuable tool for developing learning objectives. As it deeply explains the whole process of learning and understanding, it can help us design our course structures accordingly. It also helps us set the right expectations for the learners.

As per Bloom, before you understand something, you have to remember it. If you want to apply a certain concept, you must have a proper understanding of it. Then, if you were to evaluate a certain process, you need to analyze it. Finally, to draw a conclusion, you must do a thorough evaluation.

So it's all interconnected. For a course or training program to work, we need to know where our learners stand. If most of the learners are just starting fresh, you need an introductory course. You will only be hitting the lower-order Bloom skills in this course because the learners will only be developing their basic information about it.

However, if most of your learners already have an idea about the contents, say maybe they are starting as graduates or seniors. They must be familiar with much of the terminology and processes.

So you begin on solid ground, and these advanced students will be able to meet the higher-order learning objectives with ease. Likewise, if you keep the lower-level objectives for them, the course may become boring.

Three-Level Objectives 

It’s very important to understand the difference between course, assessment, and lesson-level objectives. The course level objectives are broader. At the same time, the lesson level outcomes are narrowed down.

• Course-Level Objectives. The course objectives are broad; you’ll only have like three to five course-level objectives. As for analyzing and measuring them, it can be a bit of a challenge because they are so broad that you can’t set specific assessment criteria for them.
• Assessment-Level Objectives. Assessment-level objectives are the specific and measurable learning goals that are directly linked to how learners will be evaluated. These objectives are more granular than course-level or lesson-level objectives and are used to design quizzes, tests, assignments, or performance tasks.
• Lesson-Level Objectives. We use the lesson-level objectives to see how well a learner has achieved in terms of the course. We build the lesson-level objectives around the course-level objectives. This way, they support the course-level objectives, so the learners ultimately reach mastery.

How to Include Bloom’s Taxonomy Principles in Your Objectives

Make sure to include only one of Bloom's taxonomy verbs in each of your objectives. It should be black and white; either the learner achieves a certain result or doesn’t. 

When we place two verbs in a certain objective, that’s where things go wrong and can lead to ambiguities. 

For instance, if you write an objective like, “Define and apply key marketing concepts,” you’re mixing two sets of verbs. Here we have a lower-order skill (define or Remembering) with a higher-order skill (apply or Applying). This makes it unclear which skill the learner is truly expected to master or how you'll assess it.

Secondly, you need to ensure that both objectives are compatible. Like the course-level objectives at the top of Bloom’s taxonomy hierarchy should be in line with the highest lesson-level objectives.

Lastly, all objectives should be clear, measurable, or better yet, follow the SMART standard for defining them: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound.

Application of Bloom's Taxonomy in E-Learning

Bloom’s taxonomy has been used for traditional classroom training for years. It is a very successful model for learning as it can determine the learners' behaviours, which in turn helps us achieve the goals of the course or training program. We can hence apply the same model to e-learning today.

There are six stages to apply Bloom’s taxonomy to e-learning.

1. Knowledge

The first step of the application of Bloom's taxonomy is to pass on knowledge to your learners through the course. Make use of multimedia content, like videos, text, animation, etc, to deliver the learning objectives to the learners. 

You can also take a quiz in the end to test their knowledge. This is something that can be easily managed on a platform like Coursebox.  

Coursebox allows multimedia integration, where you can upload all sorts of text and animated content files to draft the contents of the course. There are also gamification tools like quizzes, all AI-generated, to test the knowledge of the learners in the end.

2. Comprehension

In the second stage, the learner's knowledge is put to the test. We check if they have developed an understanding of the course or not. 

You can again use the quizzes and assessments of the LMS platform here to check if they’ve really grasped the concepts.

3. Application

Next, we give the learners some practical test simulations, scenarios, or role-play games to help them interact with the course content. The instructor simulates practical problems they will face in the organizations and asks them to apply those learned skills.

This can be done via case study assessments or role-playing models in e-learning.

4. Analysis

By now, the learners have developed a strong command of the course content. Now you need to assess and enhance their knowledge with features other than quizzes and assessments.

Use the discussion boards where they interact with their peers and discuss and apply the contents in real-time. This will further enhance their learning and also help you assess or identify gaps in the course structure.

5. Evaluation

The main part of the e-learning is completed by the fourth stage, which is analysis. However, to ensure that the learning is indeed successful, we need to evaluate the training or learning program further. 

It will also help you in the future to design such courses that actually facilitate the learners by accommodating them and making the course content more apt to their levels. 

The learners should gain sufficient knowledge by the end of the course, which would ensure they become mentors and instructors for the new learners. 

6. Creation

Creation is the end of Bloom's taxonomy in e-learning. However, it is the most difficult stage. The learners must know how to apply the concepts in real life. The learning is assessed beyond their memory or basic knowledge.

They may be given a specific assignment where they have to collaborate with the group and come up with ideas to find a unique solution to a problem.

This completes the learning process. They are now masters ready to deliver their knowledge to others.

Wrap Up

What is Bloom’s taxonomy? It is not something you just read in the books anymore. It is not a theory or a concept; it’s a strategy and a smart approach to learning.

Bloom's hierarchy gives us the structure to design courses in a way that we are better able to meet the end objective. Thanks to LMS platforms by Coursebox, we can easily align the contents of the course with built-in AI-generated tools.

There are quizzes, multimedia content, and personalized learning paths, which make e-learning easy and smooth. This way, your designed courses deliver concepts with intent, with Coursebox doing the heavy lifting for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Bloom’s taxonomy?

Bloom’s taxonomy is a breakdown of how we learn. Starting from remembering simple facts to critical thinking and problem resolution, it helps educators design lessons that guide students step-by-step into deeper learning and understanding.

What are the six levels of Bloom’s taxonomy?

There are six cognitive levels of Bloom’s taxonomy: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create. Each of these levels builds on the last one to support deeper understanding in the learners' minds.

Why is Bloom’s taxonomy important in e-learning?

Bloom’s taxonomy ensures the learners process content step-by-step. They start with basic learning and later progress to logic and cognition, thereby mastering the content. Using an LMS platform like Coursebox can help you align the course design with these learning levels using different gamification tools like quizzes, multimedia, and assessments.

Can we use Bloom’s taxonomy outside of education?

Yes! Bloom’s taxonomy can be used in corporate training, performance evaluations, and instructional design. It improves training outcomes and helps in employee development and growth.

How does Bloom’s taxonomy support learner assessment?

Bloom’s taxonomy gives us a structured way to assess the learners in terms of the objectives. This helps us assess how well they can recall the material and perform higher-order thinking tasks like data analysis and problem resolution.