Bloom's Taxonomy in Education

Bloom’s taxonomy in education is a good resource to help educators teach students based on their abilities. Read on to learn all about it!

Written and verified by the psychologist Ana Couñago.

Last update: 27 December, 2022

Through the planning of multi-tiered activities with the use of Bloom’s taxonomy, teachers can meet all their students’ educational needs, attending to diversity in their classroom in an inclusive way.

With this educational approach, teachers are responsible for preparing school assignments by taking into account the different degrees of cognitive processes in students. As a result, they propose activities in which the level of complexity and demand progressively increases.

Bloom’s taxonomy in education

Multi-tiered activities consist of establishing sequenced tasks to reach a certain learning standard. Thus, students learn based on tiers, divided into different cognitive levels. They first perform simple tasks that, once they complete them, gradually become more complex until they reach the highest level.

These activities are based on Bloom’s taxonomy. This author states that the mental operations a student uses when they’re acquiring and mastering knowledge can be classified into six tiers, from least to greatest degree of difficulty.

The levels of Bloom’s taxonomy

• First level: remember. This consists of recognizing and remembering relevant information. It involves defining, citing, enumerating, identifying, and naming, among other activities. For example, naming three relevant authors, writing a list of characters of a certain story, reciting the times tables, etc.
• Second level: understand. It refers to understanding and having the ability to build meaning on specific knowledge. It involves associating, paraphrasing, explaining, contrasting, and discussing, among other activities. For example, explaining the learned contents in a personal way, making conceptual maps, and discussing the key points of a topic, etc.
• Third level: apply. In other words, using the learned knowledge and skills in new situations. It involves appreciating, calculating, solving, illustrating, completing, developing, and discovering, among other activities. For example, correcting incorrect data, making a budget, and designing an experiment based on certain knowledge, among other activities.
• Fourth level: analyze. It consists of breaking down learning into several parts and relating them to each other. Thus, it involves separating, ordering, inferring, interpreting, and modeling, among others. For example, interpreting the feelings of the main characters of a story and comparing two theories on the same topic.
• Fifth level: evaluate. This implies assessing and judging acquired knowledge based on established criteria. Therefore, it involves testing, measuring, valuing, and justifying, among others. For example, writing their perspective on a topic and choosing the best or worst arguments of an author regarding a topic, among others.
• Sixth level: create. It consists of improving or doing something original and new based on a learned topic. Thus, it involves designing, proposing, inventing, modifying, and rewriting, among others. For example, turning a novel into a play, writing a diary from a specific character’s perspective, and designing an investigation on a certain topic, among others.

Benefits of Bloom’s taxonomy to propose multi-tiered activities in the classroom

Proposing and planning multi-tiered activities in classrooms benefits all students, since each of them achieves the different learning goals at their own pace. Thus, each student reaches the level they can according to their characteristics and abilities.

As a result, this provides an adequate educational response for:

• Firstly, gifted and highly capable students who’ll surely do the sixth level activities.
• Secondly, children who have some type of difficulties or school problems.
• Finally, the rest of the student body.