Want to know a quick way to evaluate how much your child is learning? Where are they on the Bloom’s Taxonomy chart?
- Can they recall, describe, or tell?
- Can they state in their own words and explain?
- Can they apply what they know by showing or predicting?
- Can they classify, compare, or outline?
- Can they modify, rewrite, or produce?
- Can they draw conclusions, decide, and defend?
By using the chart, we can make sure our children are incorporating critical thinking skills — particularly useful when we pull together our own studies.
Critical thinking is often a buzz word in education. So we purchase “critical thinking” books and engage in “critical thinking” activities. But critical thinking runs through all of the subjects. After all, training the mind to think wisely is the point of education. So rather than single out “critical thinking” as a subject area, we can encourage our children to think critically in all of their activities, no matter the topic, interest, or subject.
This system works better than learning to think in a separate thinking class and then expecting to transfer the skills to other classes. Transfer is limited.
Dr. Ruth Beechick, A Biblical Home Education
Bloom’s Taxonomy was created in the mid-1950s by Benjamin Bloom and four other collaborators. In 2001 a group of collaborators including a former student of Bloom, modified the original model using verbs instead of nouns and rearranging the order slightly. This new model is actually easier to use:
- Remembering.
- Understanding.
- Applying.
- Analyzing.
- Evaluating.
- Creating.
We want to make sure our children can do more than recall basic facts — the lower order cognitive skills. We want them to be stretched to understand, apply, analyze, evaluate and create! Bloom!
This is easiest to accomplish naturally by allowing our children time to investigate their individual interests — thoroughly.
We’ll be taking a look at how we can incorporate each level when pulling together our own studies.
Additional Resources
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
Great download from the University of Illinois with an easy-to-use chart that incorporates the verbs along with questions and activities for each level. Very helpful!
Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy
Very helpful download from Iowa State.
Bloom’s Taxonomy Questions
Excellent resource at ReadingRockets.org that you can download and refer to when incorporating these ideas. Each level includes an explanation of the level, keywords, questions, and assessment ideas.
Blooming Orange
Using the new classification system, this orange from Smart Tutor shows activities your child can do in each category.
Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy with Verbs
Great infographic!
Enjoy the complete series:
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