BLOOM’S TAXONOMY:ORIGINAL AND REVISED

ABSTRACT
Many curriculum planners, administrators, researchers, and classroom teachers at all
level of education have used Bloom’s taxonomy. Bloom’s taxonomy is a multi-tiered
model of classifying thinking according to six cognitive level of complexity. Bloom’s
taxonomy has stood the test of the time. Due to its long history and popularity, it has been
condensed, expanded, and interpreted in a variety of ways. Research findings have led to
the discovery of a veritable smorgasbord of interpretations and applications falling on
continuum ranging from tight overviews to expanded explanations. Nonetheless, one recent
revision merits particular attention. To know both version of cognitive taxonomy of bloom
help us to make a better plan to have a successful problem solving because they involve the
feelings and beliefs of the students and teachers as well as the social and cultural
environment of the classroom.
INTRODUCTION
Bloom’s taxonomy is a topic that education people keep talking about. His
attention to the development of specifications through which educational objectives could
be organized according their cognitive complexity. If such an organization or hierarchy
could be developed, university examiners might have a more reliable procedure for
assessing students and the outcomes of educational practice. Bloom and his coworkers
created the classic definition of the levels of educational activity, from the very simple (like
memorizing facts) to the more complex (such as analyzing or evaluating information).
Their intent was to develop a method of classification for thinking behaviors that
were believed to be important in the processes of learning. Eventually, this framework
became taxonomy of three domains: (www.coe.uga.edu/epltt/bloo.htm)
• The cognitive – knowledge based domain that consists of six levels
• The affective – attitudinal based domain that consists of five levels
• The Psychomotor – skills based domain that consists of six level
What resulted from his work is Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Handbook 1, the
cognitive domain was published in 1956 (Eisner 2000). Because many curriculum
planners, administrators, researchers and educators, it is better if we know better about the
Bloom’s taxonomy.
DISCUSSION
The cognitive taxonomy is predicated on the idea that cognitive operations can be
ordered into six increasingly complex levels. What is taxonomic about the taxonomy is
that each subsequent level depends upon the students’ ability to perform at the level or
levels that precede it. The taxonomy was no mere classification scheme. It was an effort to
hierarchically order cognitive processes. The bloom taxonomy has been revised to correct
some of the problems in it.
 Evaluation Creating
Synthesis Evaluating
Analysis Analyzing
Application Applying
Comprehension Understanding
Knowledge Remembering
OLD VERSION NEW VERSION

The Bloom taxonomy (www.nerds.unl.edu/pages/preser/sec/articles/bloom.html):

Level of Taxonomy : Evaluating/Creating
Definition : Judging the values of the idea, material, and methods by
developing and applying standards and criteria.
Cognitive Process : Checking (coordinating, detecting, monitoring, testing) &
Critiquing (judging)
Teacher’s Role : to clarify, to accept, to harmonize, to guide
Student’s Role : to judge, to dispute, to develop, to active, to participate
Process Verbs : to judge, to rate, to validate, to predict, to asses, to score, to
evaluate, to compare, to defend, to select, to measure, to appraise,
to value, to probe, to argue, to decide, to estimate, to revise, to
infer, to criteria, to determine, to prioritize, to tell why, to choose,
Products : investigation, judgment, opinion, report, survey, editorial, debate,
scale, evaluation, verdict, conclusion, recommendation, panel
Skill Demonstrated : compare and discriminate between the ideas, asses value of
theories, and make choice based on reasoned argument
Possible Activities : Prepare a list of criteria to judge a show and include priorities and
ratings
Possible Question : - Is there a better solution to …?
- Judge the value of…?
- Can you defend your position about…?

Level of Taxonomy : Synthesis/Evaluating

Definition : Putting together constituent elements or parts to form a whole
requiring original, creative thinking.
Cognitive Process : Generating (hypothesis), Planning (designing),, & Producing
(constructing)
Teacher’s Role : to reflect, to extend, to analyze, to evaluate
Student’s Role : to discuss, to generalize, to relate, to compare, to contrast, to
abstract, to active, to participant
Process Verbs : to compose, to assemble, to manage, to pretend, to arrange, to
organize, to invent, to generalize, to systematize, to show, to
 compile, to forecast, to modify, to devise, to derive, to purpose, to
construct, to plan, to revise, to collect, to prepare, to develop,
Products : film, story, project, blueprint, plan, solution, new game, song,
pantomime, video, newspaper, painting, HyperCard stack, media
product, advertisement, poem, formula, machine, goal, play,
cartoon, invention, product, radio, event, collage, design
Skill Demonstrated : use old ideas to create new ones and generalize from given facts
Possible Activities : invent a machine for a specific task, create a new product, and
write about your feelings in relation to…
Possible Question : - Can you design a …to…?
- Can you see a possible to ….?
- Can you develop a proposal which would…?

Level of Taxonomy : Analysis/Analyzing

Definition : Breaking information down into its constituent elements
Cognitive Process : Differentiating (discriminating, distinguishing, focusing,
selecting), Organizing (finding coherence, integrating, outlining,
parsing, structuring) & Attributing (deconstructing)
Teacher’s Role : to probes, to guide, to observe, to evaluate, to act as a, to resource,
to question, to organize, to dissect
Student’s Role : to discuss, to uncover, to list, to active, to participant
Process Verbs : to distinguish, , to interpret, to inspect, to compare, to examine, to
inventory, to probe, to scrutinize, to separate, to discover, to
inquire, to survey, to arrange, to detect
Products : diagram, chart, investigation, outline, graph, conclusion, plan, list,
categorize, summary, questionnaire, survey, illustration, database,
inventory, mobile, spreadsheet, abstract, checklist, report
Skill Demonstrated : see the patterns, organize some parts, recognize the hidden
meanings, and identify the components
Possible Activities : Design a questionnaire to gather further information, write a
commercial to sell a new product, and write a biography
Possible Question : - Which events could have happened
- How was this similar to ….?
- What do you see as other possible outcomes?

Level of Taxonomy : Application/Applying

Definition : Carry out or use a procedure in a given situation
Cognitive Process : Executing (carrying out) & Implementing (using)
Teacher’s Role : to show, to facilitate, to observe, to evaluate, to organize, to
question
Student’s Role : to solve problems, to demonstrate, to use of knowledge, to
construct, to active, to participate
Process Verbs : to translate, to manipulate, to exhibit, to illustrate, to calculate, to
sketch, to interpret, to prepare, t make, to experiment, to list, to
practice, to apply, to practice, to relate, to operate, to interview
Products : prediction, puzzle, scrapbook, relate, product, diary, photograph,
report, illustrate, diorama, simulation, poster, sculpture, diagram,
experiment, lesson, interview, model, performance, journal,
presentation, map, demonstration
Skill Demonstrated : use information, use method, concept, theories in new situation,
and solve problems using required skills or knowledge
Possible Activities : construct a model to show how it will work, edit films / photograph
/recordings to demonstrate a particular point, and make a puzzle
game using ideas from event
Possible Question : - How can you use
- What examples can you find to …?
- What factors would you change if …?

Level of Taxonomy : Comprehension/Understanding

Definition : construct meaning from instructional messages, including oral,
written, and graphic communication
Cognitive Process : Interpreting (clarifying, representing), Exemplifying (illustrating,
instantiating), Classifying (categorizing), Summarizing
(abstracting), Inferring (concluding), Comparing (contrasting), &
Explaining (constructing methods)
Teacher’s Role : to demonstrate, to listen, to compare, to contrast, to examine
Student’s Role : to explain, to translate, to demonstrate, to interpret, to active
Process Verbs : to relate, to identify, to discuss, to locate, to retell, to research, to
convert, to annotate, to translate, to give, to describe, to report, to
recognize, to review, to observe, to locate, to outline, to explain, to
tell, to summarize, to ask, to identify
Products : recitation, summary, collection, explanation, story problems, quiz,
definition, test, label, debate, outline
Skill Demonstrated : understand the meaning, translate knowledge into new context, and
predict consequences
Possible Activities : draw/paint pictures to explain what an event was about, Illustrate
the main idea, and write a summary report
Possible Question : - Can you write in your own words…?
- Can you write a brief outline
- Who do you think…?
Level of Taxonomy : Knowledge/Remembering
Definition : Retrieve relevant knowledge from long-term memory
Cognitive Process : Recognizing (identifying) & Recalling (retrieving)
Teacher’s Role : to direct, to tell, to show, to examine, to question, to evaluate, to
question, to evaluate
Student’s Role : to respond, to absorb, to remember, to recognize, to memorize
Process Verbs : to define, to name, to record, to match, to select, to underline, to
cite, to sort, to know, to recall, to listen, to choose, to quote, to
memorize, to show, to distinguish, to reproduce, to describe
Products : quiz, definition, fact, worksheet, reproduction, label, list, test,
workbook
Skill Demonstrated : observe and recall of information, master the subject matter, and
know the major ideas
Possible Activities : make a list of the main events, make a fact chart, and recite a poem
Possible Question : - How many…?
- Can you tell…?
- Which is true or false…?
Bloom’s taxonomy has been applied to a variety of situation. In almost all
circumstances when an instructor desires to move a group of students through a learning
process utilizing an organized framework, Bloom’s taxonomy can prove helpful. As
touched upon earlier, through the years, Bloom’s taxonomy has given rise to educational
concepts including terms such as high and low level thinking. It has been closely linked
with multiple problem solving skills, creative and critical thinking, and more recently,
technology integration. (www.coe.uga.edu/epltt/htm).

CONCLUSION
Like any theoretical model, Bloom’s taxonomy has its strength and weakness. Its
great strength is that it has taken the very important topic of thinking and placed a structure
around it that is usable by practitioners. Those teachers who keep a list of question prompts
relating to the various level of Bloom’s Taxonomy undoubtedly do a better job of
encouraging higher-order thinking in their students than those who have no such tools. On
the other hand, as anyone who has worked with a group of educators to classify a group of
questions and learning activities according to the Taxonomy can attest, there is little
consensus about what seemingly self –evident terms like “analysis,’ or “evaluate” mean.
But we don’t have to worry about the using the Bloom’s taxonomy and its revision because
both of them are giving the students with the knowledge and cognitive process they need
for successful problem solving.
REFERENCES
www.coe.uga.edu/epltt/bloom.htm
www.nerds.unl.edu/pages/preser/sec/articles/bloom.html
www.coun.uvic.ca/learning/exams/blooms-taxonomy.html
Teaching and e