The Bloom Taxonomy is a taxonomy of educational objectives. It serves as a framework to classify statements about the expected learning as a result of instructions. The taxonomy is depicted as a hierarchy of six major categories of the cognitive process. The categories differ in their complexity with increasing complexity the higher the category is rated. The Bloom Taxonomy is also applicable to Microlearning.
The individual categories are briefly outlined below. Their corresponding cognitive processes are itemised in bold and described. Alternative names or synonyms of the processes are italicised.
Remember
In the “Remember” category, the focus lies on identifying and retrieving relevant knowledge from memory and on the retention of learned materials. Its associated cognitive processes are “Recognizing” and “Recalling”.
- Recognizing refers to identifying knowledge and locating it in one’s memory.
- Recalling is the process of retrieving knowledge from memory.
Understand
The “Understand” category refers to determining the meaning of instructional messages and communication of all sorts (oral, written and graphic). The following cognitive processes are related to “Understand”:
- Interpreting is connotated with clarifying, paraphrasing, representing, or translating some communication. It is applied when changing from one form of representation to another like paraphrasing a speech.
- Within Exemplifying, the idea is to find examples for a concept or priciple. This can be done through illustrating and instantiating.
- To determining the category of something, categorizing or subsuming outline the cognitive process of Classifying.
- Summarizing is associated with the abstracting and generalizing a theme of major points.
- Inferring describes drawing logical conclusions form information and comprises the processes of concluding, extrapolating, interpolating or predicting.
- Comparing entails the juxtaposition of two ideas, objects or the like and is outlined through contrasting, mapping and matching.
- Explaining refers to the construction of a model of a system for example a model to describe causes and their effects.
Apply
Within the “Apply” category, the learning aims at the ability to carry out or use a procedure in a given situation. Thereby, it is differentiated between familiar and unfamiliar situations.
- Applying a procedure to a familiar task or carrying out a familiar task is referred to as Executing.
- Implementing consequently is associated with using a known concept to solve an unfamiliar task.
Analyse
Breaking up material into its constituent parts in order to determine how the individual parts relate to the overall concept and to one another is what makes the content of the “Analyse” category. It contains the following three cognitive processes:
- Differentiating is associated with discriminating, distinguishing, focusing, and selecting. It refers to the process of separating material into relevant and irrelevant parts.
- The process of Organizing is implemented through finding coherence, integrating, outlining, parsing, and structuring. Its purpose it to determine how individual elements affect the bigger structure.
- Attributing characterizes the process of deconstructing in order to grasp a point of view, bias, or intent of a graph or essay.
Evaluate
The “Evaluate” category is described by forming judgements based on standards and criteria on a topic. The processes differ based on whether they are concerned with the internal or external consistency of, for example, a product.
- Detecting internal (in-)consistencies of a procedure or product and their effectiveness upon implementation can be conducted through coordinating, detecting, monitoring, and testing. This internal process is known as Checking.
- Contrarily, Critiquing refers to detecting external (in-)consistencies of a procedure or product. Also judging whether a procedure is appropriate for a given situation falls into this process.
Create
”Create” represents the most complex category. Its goal is the ability to combine or rearrange pieces and elements to form a coherent or functional (new) whole.
- Within Generating, the idea is to come up with alternative hypotheses given certain criteria. The process is also called hypothesizing.
- Designing a procedure to fullfil a specific task outline the Planning process.
- Producing entails constructing or inventing new products or procedures.
Source: Anderson et al. (2001)