What I Wish I'd Known About Bloom's Taxonomy From the Beginning

by Kate Wolfe Maxlow

If you're an educator who doesn't live under a rock, you've probably heard of Bloom's Taxonomy. But even Bloom himself said of his 1958 work, The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain, that it was "One of the most widely cited yet least read books on American education."

And truly, when I was first introduced to Bloom's Taxonomy it was through a neat little pyramidal chart like this one here. Sometimes it came with a more expansive chart full of verbs like this one that I
would then dutifully match up to my standards, muttering angrily under my breath...because how on earth can "construct" both be Apply and Create? What the heck kind of system was this?

And what impact did it really make on my teaching anyway? Did the benefit of unpacking a standard really justify the time it took to do so?

After working as a part of a curriculum department for several years now, I've come to the conclusion that the answer, like with most things, is: "Yes. With caveats." Because the more that I actually read Benjamin Bloom and the updated 2000 A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Education Objectives by Anderson and Krathwohl, the more I realize that I was missing certain key points when I was just looking at that handy dandy pyramid and verb chart--points that would have really made my unpacking of standards worthwhile.


1. Bloom always intended there to be other domains beyond the Cognitive.

While Bloom started with the Cognitive domain as a way to combat the then-popular drill-and-kill style of education (which, if you're a fan of educational history, you know is one half of the pendulum that constantly swings back and forth between "deeper understanding" and "back to basic facts"), he always meant there to also be an Affective Domain, or the way that people feel about their learning, and the Psychomotor Domain, which encompasses the ability to physically move through the world.

In other words, Bloom never wanted students to just know that graduated cylinders can measure the volume of liquids (Remember or Understand level, depending on how you teach it), he also wanted them to appreciate the value of accurate measurements (Affective Domain) and have the physical abilities to actually, you know, measure some liquids in a graduated cylinder (Psychomotor Domain).

Rarely in education today do we discuss the Affective and Psychomotor Domain, and I think it's often to the detriment of our students. If we pay attention to the Affective Domain, we realize that in addition to getting students to read, we need to help them learn to love and appreciate reading. If we pay attention to the Psychomotor Domain, we realize that sitting in desks for six hours a day in order to wade through swaths of curriculum prevents our students from developing an important mind-body relationship that will keep them active and healthy for years to come.

If you want a little light reading for your next beach vacation, click here to read more about the Affective and Psychomotor Domains.


2. The goal is not to always reach the highest level of the taxonomy. ("Create" under the Anderson and Krathwohl revised version)

Remember the Teapot Dome Scandal? Chances are that unless you teach American History, while you might remember studying it, and even have a vague recollection of what it was, you're murky on the specific details that you had to learn to pass that American History test back in high school.

So, if you don't have the ability to Create a documentary on the Teapot Dome scandal, is that holding you back in life? Probably not.

In other words, it's really okay if students have a "good enough" Understanding of some standards. We don't have to pull our hair out constantly to get to the Create level.

But that being said...


3. In real life, the taxonomy is not always a straight-line hierarchy like you see in the nifty graphics.

Dr. Christopher Gareis, Professor of Educational Leadership at The College of William and Mary, explains that we "oftentimes reach a deeper level of Understanding [the second level of Bloom's Taxonomy] when we engage in Analyzing, Evaluating, or Creating [the highest levels of Bloom's Taxonomy]. In other words, human cognition does not always move sequentially from knowledge to understanding and so forth. Human cognition oftentimes moves rapidly between and among levels of cognition, even if imperfectly." 

Let's go back to the Teapot Dome Scandal for a minute. According to History.com, "In 1920, Warren G. Harding, a senator and Ohio newspaper publisher, won a long-shot bid for the White House with the financial backing of oilmen who were promised oil-friendly cabinet picks in return."

As a student, certainly I can memorize that piece of information, but in order to really Understand the role of corruption in politics, I might first have to spend some time at the Evaluate level, such as by working through an assignment like: "Was it wrong for Harding to appoint Senator Albert Fall as Secretary of the Interior? Justify your answer using relevant historical facts and primary sources." Once I can Evaluate this particular historical event, I might be ready to Understand the bigger topic of political corruption and its impact on American citizens.

Even so...


4. Be wary of an over-reliance on Bloom's Taxonomy--and especially on verb charts.

I'm not saying that verb charts are never helpful...just that they're not nearly as important as actually asking yourself, "What is this standard asking students to DO with what they need to know?" It's so easy to pull out the chart, find a verb under a particular taxonomy level, and go along your merry way without actually doing anything to inform your instruction.

But the point of Bloom's Cognitive Taxonomy is to ensure that you're aligning your instruction and assessment with the curriculum, so that makes it imperative to actually think about what the standard is asking. Whether the standard is at the Analyze or Evaluate level is actually less important than ensuring that your instruction is aligned with what the curriculum's intended learning outcomes and how those outcomes will be assessed. Bloom's Taxonomy is just one framework that gives us the language to do a better job at reaching that alignment.

And guess what?  Even Benjamin Bloom himself recognized the limitations of his taxonomy, noting that "Ideally each major field should have its own taxonomy in its own language...with possible new categories, combinations of categories and omitting categories as appropriate."

So why does our division use Bloom's? Well, as educators, it gives us one common language so that we can learn together and collaborate. As I usually say in PD sessions, "It's a good enough system for every discipline, even if it's not perfect for any one discipline."

(P.S., if you really want a verb chart, the best one I've found is in Anderson and Krathwohl's A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Education Objectives. It breaks down each level of Bloom's taxonomy into sub-categories that make it easier to understand the overall category, but if you don't want to buy the whole book, this chart gets you part of the way there.)