Benjamin Bloom was a US American educator who made contributions to the classification of educational objectives and to the theory of mastery learning.
He is known for leading educational psychologists to develop a comprehensive system of describing and assessing educational outcomes.
He also created a taxonomy (ie. Bloom’s Taxonomy) of measurable verbs to help educators describe and classify observable knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviours and abilities.
This taxonomy is based upon the idea that there are levels of observable actions that indicate something is happening in the brain (cognitive activity.)
By creating learning objectives using measurable verbs, we indicate explicitly what the student must do in order to demonstrate learning.
- Knowledge “involves the recall of specifics and universals, the recall of methods and processes, or the recall of a pattern, structure, or setting.”
- Comprehension “refers to a type of understanding or apprehension such that the individual knows what is being communicated and can make use of the material or idea being communicated without necessarily relating it to other material or seeing its fullest implications.”
- Application refers to the “use of abstractions in particular and concrete situations.”
- Analysis represents the “breakdown of a communication into its constituent elements or parts such that the relative hierarchy of ideas is made clear and/or the relations between ideas expressed are made explicit.”
- Synthesis involves the “putting together of elements and parts so as to form a whole.”
- Evaluation engenders “judgments about the value of material and methods for given purposes.”
Source: Armstrong, P. (2010). Bloom’s Taxonomy. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/.