Bloom's Taxonomy and Objectives

Why Write Objectives?

Creating concise objectives is key to developing purposeful and systematic instruction. One of the most prevalent conclusions that educators have drawn from the large body of instructional research is that instruction needs to be tailored to support concrete instructional objectives and to meet specific learning outcomes (Bloom, Engelhart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl, 1974; Bloom, Krathwohl, & Masia, 1956).

The <Replace - Institution Name> is a member of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). The SACS Criteria for Accreditation requires that all institutions must develop a set of learning goals for each program that is consistent with the mission of the school or program (SACS, 2001). To meet the SACS requirement, it is important to link your course goals and objectives to the university, school, and program goals. In an online environment, clear and measurable course goals and objectives are especially important for creating a purposeful learning environment.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives is a framework for classifying different ways of thinking about and ordering objectives. According to Bloom (1956), learning occurs in three domains: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. Within the cognitive domain, Bloom categorizes and orders thinking skills and objectives from lower order thinking skills to higher order thinking skills in six levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The framework has since been adapted for classroom use as a means to support purposeful development of instructional content and specifically measurable learning objectives.

Two major revisions on Bloom’s taxonomy took place in the recent decade. Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) first revised Bloom's taxonomy to meet the needs of 21^st century audiences. The revised taxonomy included the use of verbs in categories of thinking skills and rearrangement of the sequence within the taxonomy. Clark (2007) later adapted this revision in a circular graphic called Bloom's Taxonomy Adapted Model Download Bloom's Taxonomy Adapted Model

. Refer to this adapted model to help write your learning objectives and select appropriate assessment items for your own course(s).

In 2007, Church extended Bloom's taxonomy even further to fit the needs of the new social media technology. In the digital taxonomy, Church integrated the use of blogs, wikis, and other social media tools together with traditional means to demonstrate the six categories of thinking skills. For more information, please refer to the materials below in the Further Reading section. 

Instructional Strategies & Best Practices

A number of instructional strategies and best practices that are relevant to developing learning objectives have been included in the following section. For a blended course example, visit Blended Learning Toolkit. Read the strategies and discuss with your instructional designers how you can use them in your design process.

• Create broad course goals in accordance with the mission of the university, school, or program goals.
• Relate course goals into one or more measurable learning objectives for each unit/module/week of your course.
• Use action verbs, such as list, evaluate, etc. to write measurable and observable learning objectives. More activity verbs can be found in the Bloom’s Taxonomy Adapted Model by Clark (2007) Download Bloom’s Taxonomy Adapted Model by Clark (2007)
  .
• Align your learning objectives with your assessment strategies. A list of assessment examples can be reviewed in the Bloom's Taxonomy Adapted Model Download Bloom's Taxonomy Adapted Model
   by Clark (2007). 
• Visit the Online Tools & Taxonomy Resource (OTTR) to learn more about online tools that align with learning objectives. 
• Visit Mobile OTTR to learn more about mobile applications that align with learning objectives.

Visit Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository to view faculty examples related to measurable learning objectives. 

Optional Further Reading

• Armstrong, P. (2014). Bloom's taxonomy. The Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University. Retrieved May 6, 2014, from http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/ Links to an external site.
  • This is a brief overview of Bloom's Taxonomy. It covers the background information, the original taxonomy in 1956, the revised taxonomy in 2001 and why use Bloom's taxonomy.
• CDL (2011). Four approaches to learning taxonomies. Retrieved from http://teach.ucf.edu/files/2010/12/4-Approaches-to-Learning-Taxonomies.pdf
  • This is a handout from the UCF faculty seminar in online teaching on the topic of “Effective Online Assessment: Scalable Success Strategies.” This handout presents four approaches to learning taxonomies, including Bloom’s taxonomy, Van Hiele levels, Berliner stages, and structure of learned outcomes.
• Church, A. (2008). Bloom's digital taxonomy. Retrieved from http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jmajor/blooms/index.html Links to an external site.
• This is an update to Bloom’s revised taxonomy that accounts for the new processes and actions associated with Web 2.0 technologies. In the digital taxonomy, Church added digital verbs (e.g., blogging, tagging, etc.) in addition to the recognized and existing verbs (e.g., listing, summarizing) for each of the six categories of thinking skills.

References

• Anderson, L.W., and D. Krathwohl (Eds.) (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: a revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. Longman, New York.
• Bloom, B., Krathwohl, D., & Masia, B. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. New York: D. McKay Co., Inc.
• Bloom, B., Engelhart, M., Furst, E., Hill, W., & Krathwohl, D. (1974). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. (B. Bloom, Ed.). New York: David McKay Co., Inc.
• Church, A. (2008). Bloom's digital taxonomy. Educational Origami. Retrieved from http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jmajor/blooms/index.html Links to an external site.
• Clark, B. (2007). Growing up gifted: Developing the potential of children at home and at school (7th ed.). Prentice Hall.
• SACS. (2001). Principles of accreditation: Foundations for quality enhancement. Decatur, Georgia: Commission on Colleges Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Retrieved from http://www.sacscoc.org/pdf/PrinciplesOfAccreditation.PDF Links to an external site.

TOPKit Sample Course was prepared by the University of Central Florida (UCF). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License Links to an external site..