| What is Bloom's taxonomy and how can a teacher | | | | There are many ways in which teachers can use |
| apply Bloom's taxonomy to classroom lesson plans? | | | | blooms taxonomy to help create more focused |
| Bloom's taxonomy was originally created Benjamin | | | | lesson plans and help students use higher order |
| Bloom for categorizing and classifying levels of | | | | thinking skills. By following the Bloom's taxonomy |
| intellectual learning that commonly occur in the | | | | chart teachers can pinpoint what they will teach and |
| classroom setting. Bloom's taxonomy contains three | | | | how they will go about teaching it. For example, take |
| overlapping domains: the cognitive, psychomotor, and | | | | a social studies lesson plan on the use of the atomic |
| affective. Within the cognitive domain Benjamin | | | | bomb to end WWII. A teacher could teach this |
| Bloom identified six levels that have become | | | | lesson by having students read and memorize |
| commonly known as Blooms Taxonomy. | | | | important key terms and facts. However, even if the |
| The six levels of Bloom's taxonomy, from lowest to | | | | teacher uses a variety of teaching strategies to help |
| highest, are: knowledge, comprehension, application, | | | | increase reading comprehension, the problem is the |
| analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. These different | | | | teacher is only focusing on the lower order thinking |
| levels of Bloom's taxonomy have become an | | | | skills. The students may be able to regurgitate the |
| extremely useful guide for teachers in planning | | | | information back on the test, but the student is not |
| classroom lesson plans and classroom objectives. You | | | | using the higher order thinking skills that will help that |
| can even find a list of verbs to help teachers design | | | | student retain the information for the long-term and, |
| lesson plans in the Bloom's Taxonomy Verb Chart | | | | more importantly, help the student learn to think for |
| located on this web site: | | | | himself. |
| It is vitally important that teachers do not just teach | | | | A simply way to teach the same lesson, but also |
| lower order thinking skills at the bottom of Bloom's | | | | address the higher order thinking skills is to simply |
| taxonomy such as knowledge and comprehension, | | | | have the students write a paragraph "evaluating |
| but also teach higher order thinking skills at the top | | | | judging" Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb. |
| of Bloom's taxonomy such as evaluation. When | | | | The teacher can still have the students include the |
| students are evaluating and judging and using the | | | | key terms from the lesson in the paragraph, but by |
| higher order thinking skills they are more likely to | | | | having the students also make an argument and |
| retain information, perform better on standardized | | | | support that argument the students are also |
| tests, and most importantly, achieve the ultimate goal | | | | addressing the higher order thinking skills of Bloom's |
| of becoming lifelong learners. | | | | taxonomy. |