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Barrie did a great job of presenting Bloom’s Taxonomy. All teachers should keep this handy whenever they are planning on a test.

If the students were tested at Level One for a week or two and then the bar was raised to exams that met the Level 2 requirement for a few weeks and so on up the scale, we would probably produce students who would be better able to compete with those from other nations.

The basic problem is that this requires a great deal from the teacher. Even at the college level, examples followed by more examples followed by more are needed to get the student to move forward one level. I teach at the college level and speak from experience. Getting students to Level 3 is unbelievably time consuming; but once this is achieved, the other levels seem less difficult for them.

Each exam must be analyzed so that the student can see how to change study methods and understand what is being required.

While achievable it is going to take team work within a school or department if students are going to succeed and be at or close to Level 6.

How many faculty members can find ways of creating tools that assess the level the “test” is based on?

The level of tests/assessments instructors create depends on the level of concept covered in a lesson/class. If the content covered in the lesson is at level 1, it is unjustified to present questions that are at level 2 or 3 to the students. Therefore, instructors must keep in mind that the level of their instructions and the level at which they test their students is the same.

Let’s take an example, where you teach your students “what a network is”. To test this knowledge, you need to ask questions that test students on “what a network is” and not “which network is best suited for which environment”.

Also, the level of instruction should gradually increase in complexity. This means the complexity should follow the levels: Knowledge -> Comprehension -> Application -> Analysis -> Synthesis—> Evaluation.

I’ve just added a new lesson here that expands on the “old” Bloom and brings the conversation a little more present.

Anderson and Krathwhol have updated the language in Bloom and made it a bit easier to apply to active learning. And Barbara Cook has created what she calls a “Cognitive Taxonomy Circle” that I find very useful when I need to decide where to meet learners in their inquiry.

I’d love to hear what you think about this lesson and the concepts in it, all of you who love Bloom. Look up “How to Help People Learn Without Overwhelming Them” in the search box in the upper right corner of this page.

I tried to paste a link to the page, but it’s too long to fit in the window.

Here is the link: How to Help People Learn Without Overwhelming Them