How to use Bloom’s Taxonomy effectively

WHY USE BLOOM’S?

Bloom’s Taxonomy is the most amazing way to ensure students both truly understand your topic, as well as then being given the opportunity to use their higher-level thinking skills-  –  analyse, create, evaluate. Often after evaluation, the cycle can then revert to one of the previous levels in order to adapt the original product. Self-assessment can be built in!

DOWNLOAD THE CHARTS

OK, you’ve downloaded the various free versions of Bloom’s Taxonomy designed by Jean at ThinkShop, HERE ; now to use them…

THE SIX LEVELS IN ASCENDING ORDER

There are six levels of thinking devised by Benjamin Bloom, and they are as meaningful today as they were back then. They are a hierarchy, with Level 1 being the lowest.

Students don’t have to work through all of the levels; however, getting students to complete a couple of activities first from the 2 lowest levels, will help reveal that the student does have a good basic knowledge of the topic, with which to proceed.

• Note: some academics posit that CREATIVITY should replace  EVALUATE as the highest level of thinking; however many of us disagree with this, as once you’ve created something, you then do need to evaluate it to see whether it meets your criteria and whether it needs further adjustment or development.

SO WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?

Simply put, you need to write instructions for activities at each level, beginning with the lowest level. Making at least 2 or 3 for each level is optimal, as it gives each  student the choice of which one(s) to complete.

You can make some of the activities compulsory, others optional.

The activities become more complex and the thinking skill more advanced, as the student progresses through the levels. Some students will flourish working on the higher level activities; others may be much more comfortable with only the lower level ones, and should only be gently encouraged to work on higher-level ones. 

Once students have worked through a set of activities devised by you, they can be taught to devise their own Bloom’s activities for either the same or another inquiry.  I’ve done this most successfully with many regular classes, as well as with gifted students.

IMPORTANT: As you make up your activities for students, one of the the Bloom’s action verbs at that level, MUST be the main verb directing the student what to do. To begin with, it’s helpful to use the free charts and to simply start each activity with one of the suggested phrases.

CRAFTING BETTER ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS

As you become more experienced at writing activities using Bloom’s Taxonomy, expanding the instructions makes them much more enjoyable. We’ve provided several examples for you, to see what we mean, along with the free outlines.