Understanding Bloom’s Taxonomy: verbs, chart, goals, and examples

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a classification framework for the skills required to achieve a set of educational objectives.

Each level in this learning model encompasses a series of verbs that outline the necessary skills for performing corresponding actions.

This disruptive education methodology serves as the perfect companion in a student’s evolution towards attaining higher-order cognitive processes, such as creating something new.

In this article, we will delve deeper into the definition of Bloom’s Taxonomy, its objectives, and its levels. 

We will also explore its practical applications, allowing you to assess whether integrating it into your educational strategies is beneficial.

What is Bloom’s Taxonomy?

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a system for classifying skills according to educational objectives that should be achieved through cognitive, affective, and psychomotor dimensions of the student, organized from the simplest to the most complex. 

This educational model was developed by Benjamin Bloom in 1956 and has since been revised to adapt to the educational needs of the digital era. 

This concept aligns perfectly with disruptive education, enabling educators to establish innovative educational objectives centered on higher-order cognitive processes.

Bloom’s Taxonomy: dimensions

The aforementioned domains are essential for reaching established educational goals. In the following sections, we will explore each dimension in more detail. 

Cognitive dimension

This refers to how the student processes information and analyzes intellectual abilities. The following categories represent key cognitive processes according to the 1956 original version of the taxonomy: 

• Knowledge
• Comprehension
• Application
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• Evaluation

Affective dimension

It considers the role of emotions in learning, analyzing attitudes, feelings, values, or biases. This domain consists of five levels:

• Receiving
• Responding
• Valuing
• Organizing
• Characterizing

Psychomotor dimension

This dimension focuses on the student’s motor skills, including muscular and neural coordination.

While Bloom and his collaborators did not develop specific subcategories for the psychomotor domain, later educators, including Elizabeth Simpson, proposed their own frameworks. 

In 1972, Simpson introduced a taxonomy that outlined seven levels of psychomotor learning, each representing increasingly advanced physical skills and behaviors. These levels are:

• Perception
• Readiness to act
• Guided response
• Mechanism
• Complex overt response
• Adaptation
• Origination

Why is Bloom’s Taxonomy important in education?

Bloom’s Taxonomy is important for several reasons in the field of education:

• Clarity in educational objectives: It provides a clear framework for educators to define and communicate their learning objectives. This clarity ensures that both teachers and students have a shared understanding of what needs to be achieved in a learning experience.
• Progressive learning: Bloom’s Taxonomy categorizes cognitive processes into levels of complexity, ranging from lower-order thinking skills (remembering and understanding) to higher-order thinking skills (analyzing, evaluating, and creating). This progression encourages educators to design curricula and assessments that promote deeper learning and critical thinking.
• Alignment of assessments:  It helps align assessments with learning objectives. Educators can create assessments that target specific levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, ensuring that they measure what students are expected to learn.
• Diverse teaching strategies: It encourages educators to employ a variety of teaching strategies to address different levels of cognitive development. This diversity of instructional methods supports a more inclusive and effective learning environment.
• Adaptability: Bloom’s Taxonomy is adaptable and can be applied to various educational contexts, subjects, and grade levels. It offers a versatile framework in K-12 education, higher education, and professional training.
• Promotion of critical thinking: By emphasizing higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, evaluation, and creation, Bloom’s Taxonomy promotes critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity — skills essential for success in today’s complex world.
• Curriculum design: It assists in curriculum design and revision. Educators can use Bloom’s Taxonomy to structure learning experiences that progressively challenge students, leading to more effective and meaningful education.
• Assessment of learning: It provides a structured approach to assessing students’ learning. Educators can design assessments that reflect the depth of understanding and skills students have developed, leading to more accurate evaluations of their progress.
• Continuous improvement: Bloom’s Taxonomy encourages ongoing improvement in teaching and learning. Educators can use it as a tool for reflection and refinement of their instructional practices.
• Alignment with real-world skills: Higher-order thinking skills, such as those emphasized by Bloom’s Taxonomy, are directly relevant to the skills needed in the workforce and in everyday life. Thus, it prepares students to be more effective problem solvers and decision-makers in their future careers.

What are the Bloom Taxonomy learning objectives?

Traditional learning objectives have been based on content and didactic strategies for knowledge transmission with a passive role for students. 

This type of learning activates skills associated with the lower cognitive processes of the Bloom’s Taxonomy, such as repeating, reproducing, or recalling.

However, the advent of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in education has revolutionized educational strategies. 

Current needs place students at the center of educational strategies, prioritizing competency-based learning and relying on higher-order cognitive processes such as analyzing, evaluating, and creating. 

These verbs form the pyramid of Bloom’s Taxonomy, a roadmap that educators should consider when proposing activities. Its purpose, concerning students, is to understand what is learned and be able to apply knowledge effectively in practice.

Original vs. revised Bloom’s Taxonomy

Taxonomy of Educational Objectives was published as a result of a series of conferences held between 1949 and 1953, aimed at enhancing communication among educators in the areas of curriculum and exam development. 

The taxonomy was named after Benjamin Bloom, who led the committee that developed the framework and also served as editor of the first volume, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals.

The first volume, Handbook I: Cognitive, was published in 1956, followed by Handbook II: Affective in 1964. In 2001, the cognitive domain taxonomy was revised to reflect updated educational approaches.

In 2001, David Krathwohl — one of Bloom’s original collaborators — and co-editor Lorin Anderson released a revised version of the original taxonomy, incorporating insights from cognitive psychologists, curriculum experts, instructional researchers, and assessment professionals. 

A major change in the updated cognitive domain was the shift from noun-based to verb-based language, emphasizing active learning processes over the passive acquisition of knowledge. 

Additionally, the category “Synthesis” was replaced, and “Create” was introduced as the highest level of the hierarchy.

Bloom’s Taxonomy levels

The levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy are represented by six verbs indicating the actions the student must be capable of performing to achieve educational objectives. 

The initial classification was based on the following levels:

1. Knowledge
2. Comprehension
3. Application
4. Analysis
5. Synthesis
6. Evaluation

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy: verbs

The update carried out to adapt Bloom’s Taxonomy to the current societal needs organizes this hierarchy as follows:

Remember 

This involves cognitive processes such as observing, recalling, recognizing, remembering, quoting, or identifying. The process utilizes knowledge that the student can retrieve in the long term. The student should be able to choose, spell, relate, describe, or repeat what they have learned.

Understand

Understanding focuses on basic demonstrative comprehension of ideas, concepts, and facts. It allows students to summarize, predict, provide examples, interpret, convey, and paraphrase information.

Apply

Applying means using all the learned knowledge to solve problems in situations different from the learning context. Here, students can plan, simulate, construct, manipulate, categorize, and dramatize, among other actions.

Analyze

Analyzing involves breaking down a problem into parts, perceiving the meaning of each part in relation to the whole, and understanding their interrelationships. Students can identify causes and motives by reasoning, comparing, inspecting, seeking similarities, distinguishing, or studying cause and effect.

Evaluate

Evaluation is the ability to make judgments about information, ideas, or the quality of work according to pre-established criteria. At this level, students can reason, defend their arguments, explain, criticize, judge, test, persuade, deduce, and recommend, among other actions.

Create

Creating is the most challenging level in Bloom’s Taxonomy. Students can generate, plan, modify, and produce to form a coherent new whole, either by creating a new pattern or modifying an existing one. 

This might involve inventing a device or proposing alternative solutions to a conflict. 

To achieve this, they need to assume tasks such as hypothesizing, theorizing, visualizing, developing, transforming, experimenting, innovating, elaborating, and programming.

Bloom’s Taxonomy chart 

Below is the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy chart, which reflects the updated hierarchy of cognitive processes introduced in the 2001 revision.

Bloom’s Taxonomy: criticism and limitations

While Bloom’s Taxonomy remains a widely used framework in education, it has been subject to various criticisms and limitations. Below is a closer examination of these concerns:

However, learning is rarely so linear, as students often engage with multiple levels simultaneously. 

Overly hierarchical and linear

The original taxonomy is often viewed as a strict hierarchy, implying that learners must master lower levels before progressing to higher ones. 

Although the revised version acknowledges some overlap, it still maintains a hierarchical structure that some educators find overly rigid.

Lack of empirical validation

Critics argue that Bloom’s Taxonomy lacks strong empirical evidence to support its structure. The hierarchy is based more on theoretical assumptions than on robust research, raising questions about the validity of the model and the progression it suggests.

Limited applicability to real-world contexts

The taxonomy can fall short in addressing the complexities of real-life learning. It may oversimplify how knowledge is constructed and fail to account for the influence of prior experience, for example. 

Over-reliance on assessment

Because the taxonomy is frequently used to guide assessment design, it can inadvertently promote an overemphasis on standardized testing. This may lead to narrow instructional practices that fail to capture students’ broader learning experiences and capabilities.

Terminological and structural issues

The revised taxonomy introduced new terms and expanded subcategories, which some educators find confusing or overly complex. This can make it more difficult to apply effectively when planning lessons or defining learning objectives.

While Bloom’s Taxonomy offers a valuable framework for categorizing skills, it is not without limitations. 

Educators should use it thoughtfully and remain aware of its shortcomings. Incorporating diverse approaches and addressing social and real-world aspects of learning can lead to more balanced and effective educational experiences.

Bloom’s taxonomy examples

Here are examples of learning objectives and activities aligned with each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy:

Remembering:

• Learning objective: Recall the key events of the American Civil War.
• Activity: Create a timeline of important events during the American Civil War.

Understanding:

• Learning objective: Explain the concept of photosynthesis.
• Activity: Write a brief summary of photosynthesis in your own words.

Applying:

• Learning objective: Apply the principles of geometry to solve a real-world problem involving angles.
• Activity: Calculate the angles required to construct a triangular roof for a shed project.

Analyzing:

• Learning objective: Analyze the causes and effects of climate change.
• Activity: Research and write a paper examining the contributing factors to climate change and its environmental consequences.

Evaluating:

• Learning objective: Evaluate the effectiveness of a marketing campaign.
• Activity: Analyze a recent marketing campaign (e.g., a television commercial or social media campaign) and write a report assessing its impact on brand awareness and sales.

Creating:

• Learning objective: Develop a business plan for a new startup.
• Activity: Create a comprehensive business plan that includes a business model, marketing strategy, financial projections, and an executive summary for a new business venture.

These examples demonstrate how Bloom’s Taxonomy can be applied to various subjects and levels of education. 

As you move up the taxonomy levels, the learning objectives and activities become more complex, encouraging critical thinking and deeper understanding of the subject matter.

Bloom’s Taxonomy questions

Bloom’s Taxonomy offers a structured approach for organizing learning objectives based on complexity. 

Educators often use the taxonomy to craft questions that promote deeper engagement and stimulate various levels of cognitive processing. Below is an overview of question types aligned with each level of the taxonomy:

Remembering

Common questions: What, who, when, where, list, name, identify, describe, define, recall. Examples:

• What is the capital city of Canada?
• Who wrote Romeo and Juliet?
• List the primary colors
• What year did the first man land on the moon?
• Name the largest planet in our solar system

Understanding

Common questions: Explain, describe, illustrate, interpret, summarize, paraphrase, compare, contrast, predict. Examples:

• Explain how the water cycle works
• Summarize the main ideas of the article
• Explain the various climate zones across your country
• Describe the steps involved in the scientific method
• Interpret the meaning of a poem you have read

Applying

Common questions: Apply, calculate, demonstrate, dramatize, illustrate, modify, solve, use. Examples:

• Calculate the area of a triangle using the formula you learned
• Demonstrate how to properly plant a seed to help it grow
• Use the concept of gravity to explain why objects fall to the ground
• Apply the rules of grammar to correct this sentence
• Show how you would budget money to save for a new phone

Analyzing

Common questions: Analyze, categorize, compare, contrast, detect, differentiate, distinguish, examine, investigate. Examples:

• Analyze the reasons behind the decline of the Roman Empire
• Compare the benefits and drawbacks of renewable and non-renewable energy sources
• Examine the factors that led to the Great Depression
• Analyze the main themes in a novel you’ve read
• Compare the differences between classical and jazz music styles

Evaluating

Common questions: Evaluate, assess, conclude, critique, defend, determine, judge, justify, recommend, support. Examples:

• Assess the effectiveness of the new school recycling program
• Judge the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed city development plan
• Defend your opinion on whether homework should be mandatory
• Evaluate the impact of social media on communication skills
• Critique the methodology used in a scientific study you’ve read

Creating

Common questions: Create, compose, construct, design, develop, invent, modify, plan, produce, revise. Examples:

• Design a plan to improve recycling rates in your community
• Modify an existing recipe to make it healthier
• Develop a marketing campaign for a new app
• Invent a tool that helps people stay organized
• Create a presentation proposing ways to conserve water at home

What is the purpose of Bloom’s Taxonomy?

Bloom’s Taxonomy simplifies the evaluation process by hierarchizing cognitive processes and the skills necessary to develop them, as we discussed earlier. 

Similarly, it facilitates the creation of educational content and the organization of collaborative project activities.

At this stage, we want to highlight some of the advantages of this methodology:

Bloom’s Taxonomy seamlessly integrates with tools like Learning Management Systems (LMS), enabling you to enhance your evaluative processes. 

• Shapes individuals who can apply their knowledge practically.
• Enhances initiative, creativity, and critical judgment in individuals.
• Improves decision-making.

Combine them with SMOWL’s proctoring plans to merge innovation with security, offering secure and accessible evaluation or remote supervision environments for your users.

Request a free demo to discover tools like browser locking, 360º webcam monitoring, user records, and much more.

Updated on 09/07/2025

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