Bloom’s Taxonomy was created by educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues in 1956. It is a great tool to encourage higher-order thinking in the classroom. Teachers have used this as a framework for education for many years to guide their students to deeper levels of understanding and mastery. In recent years, we have seen the inclusion of higher-level thinking skills in educational reform. These more rigorous standards and skill requirements make it imperative to incorporate these skills into our classroom. Let’s dive right in and discuss what Bloom’s Taxonomy is and how we can use it to guide instruction.

What is Bloom’s Taxonomy?

Bloom’s Taxonomy is the categorization of thinking skills and abilities in order from the most simple to the most complex.

The original Bloom’s Taxonomy, developed by Benjamin Bloom in 1956, had six levels of cognitive skills arranged in a hierarchy: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. However, in 2001, a group of educators led by Anderson and Krathwohl revised and expanded the taxonomy to better reflect the complexities of learning in the 21st century.

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy Levels

The Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy retains the six original levels but reorganizes them into a more logical order and uses action verbs to describe each level:

1. Remembering: This level corresponds to the knowledge level in the original taxonomy. Students are expected to recall facts, terms, and basic concepts.
2. Understanding: Similar to comprehension in the original taxonomy, this level involves explaining ideas or concepts, summarizing information, and demonstrating an understanding of the subject matter.
3. Applying: In this level, students use what they’ve learned to solve problems, carry out tasks, or apply knowledge to new situations.
4. Analyzing: Students at this level break down information into parts and explore the relationships between those parts. They can identify patterns, draw connections, and analyze data.
5. Evaluating: This level involves making judgments about the value of information or methods. Students critically assess arguments, theories, and solutions, considering their strengths and weaknesses.
6. Creating: At the highest level, students are expected to generate new ideas, products, or ways of thinking. This includes designing, constructing, planning, and producing original work.

Bloom’s design requires each step to be mastered before moving on to the next category. The categories become increasingly more difficult as you move through them.

While the taxonomy is often depicted in pyramid form, with remembering being the base, I find it is also important to think of the process as stair steps. The student must begin with the most basic skill of recalling knowledge and progress to evaluation, which is the most complex processing skill. 

How to Use Bloom’s Taxonomy in the Classroom

Daily

Weaving Bloom’s Taxonomy into our daily lessons and conversations is vitally important. We may not and probably won’t go through the entire taxonomy in one lesson or day. However, that doesn’t mean we aren’t working at different levels in the many different assignments and tasks our students face on a given day.

The lower levels are just as important as the uppers. Remember, you can’t jump straight to the top of the staircase. It requires intentional steps to go from one step to the next.

Oftentimes, memorization is not considered an effective teaching strategy. However, it is very useful for students to be able to have immediate access to different types of knowledge in order to effectively move through the framework.  So, while we don’t stop with the mere memorization of facts, it is a starting place.

During Planning

Implementing all the steps of the taxonomy can seem like a daunting task. And if you only look at it from the perspective of trying to add it in an impromptu fashion, it definitely is. However, with intentional planning, you can weave these important steps into every lesson you teach.

Take the time to consider all six categories broadly when planning a unit or activity. Start with the basics and move through the categories as you dig deeper into your unit. Use the same strategy when planning a project-based unit that will require an application in the end from your students.

If you weave the different levels into your planning, then using them on a daily basis will be much easier.

When Creating Assignments and Asking Questions

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy in the creation of assignments or projects is another area worth exploring. As you plan the tasks your students will do, consider which level of the taxonomy the assignment fits in. As you look at the various tasks in a lesson or unit, this can help you quickly and easily see the order in which they should be completed.

Bloom’s can also be very helpful when trying to come up with guided questions for students. Our questions can play a big part in helping them move through the different steps and levels. This can be tough! It takes a change in our thinking in order to intentionally guide our students’ thinking.

Help from Question Stems

Do you use question stems to encourage critical thinking? It’s easy to do when you have a list of questions written generally enough to be widely applicable. By keeping these question stems at your fingertips, the ability to practice thinking critically is always available! When I first committed to doing this, it was difficult. I would set out with great intentions but often struggled with hitting all the areas I wanted to. I needed a gentle reminder, so I created these Bloom’s Taxonomy Questions Stems to keep close by. By keeping these questions at my fingertips, the ability to weave the questions into my lessons and discussions became so much easier.

I created these question stems so they could be easily placed on a metal binder ring. This makes them easy to keep up with! You can laminate, hole punch, and store on a key ring to utilize anytime and anywhere. This allows you to have fast and easy access to the question stems all the time!

They are a great resource to pull from when asking kids questions during a lesson or small group activity. The great thing about them is that the question stems are generic, so you can adapt them to fit any subject and grade level. 

Grab this helpful tool!

You can find these Bloom’s Taxonomy Question Stems in my shop. For less than a cup of coffee, you can have confidence knowing that you can purposefully guide your students through the thinking levels.

Save These Bloom’s Taxonomy Tips and Resources

I hope you have a better understanding of what Bloom’s Taxonomy is and how you can utilize it in your classroom. You will find that as you implement these strategies, your students will become more effective thinkers. As always, don’t expect immediate results. It will be a learning process for you and your students with a very worthwhile outcome!

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