Training & Resources / For Course Development / Bloom's Taxonomy
Bloom's Taxonomy: Cognitive Domain
Bloom's Taxonomy is at the center of building experiences for learning.
What is Bloom's Taxonomy anyhow?
In 1956, Benjamin Bloom led a group of educational experts who created a way of thinking about planning and structuring teaching/learning that's held up with only minor changes for nearly 60 years. Bloom et al., defined three "domains" of learning -- cognitive (conceptual knowledge), affective (emotional knowledge), and psychomotor (physical skills). As faculty in higher ed, we tend to focus on the cognitive domain. This common pyramid representation shows that a learner moves from the foundational Knowledge level up to Application and ultimately, Evaluation and Synthesis.
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Why is it called a "taxonomy"?
A "taxonomy" is a classification system and the principles that form its framework. Most images of Bloom's Taxonomy for the Cognitive Domain carry a particular meaning: that it is a hierarchy, a ranking of items from lowest to highest. Here's a key point: A learner MUST progress from lowest to highest. It simply doesn't work any other way. The images below show the progression. This nested version shows that each level is a part of the ones above it in the Taxonomy. Again, learning begins with the lowest level (renamed "Remembering") and moves up. The revised Taxonomy uses verb forms as titles instead of nouns and did some minor rearranging.
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This stair-step arrangement includes a good selection of ideas for teaching at each level and verbs for outcomes. There are lots more resources for verbs. Just Search using "Blooms Taxonomy, verb list."