Bloom’s Taxonomy
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Yale Center for Teaching and Learning
[Link] / [Link]
Bloom’s Taxonomy is a framework for organizing evidence of learning into levels of complexity
and maturity. Published in 1956, the tool was named for professor Benjamin Bloom, who was
the first author of the taxonomy developed by 34 scholars at a series of APA conferences
between 1949 and 1953. Revised in 2002, it is one of the most widely utilized tools in K-12 and
higher education, describing six levels that capture lower to higher-order thinking.
Bloom’s Level Description
Remembering (lowest-order) Students can retrieve relevant information from their long-term memory
Students can determine the meaning of instructional messages, including
Understanding
oral, written and graphic communication
Applying Students can carry out or use a procedure in a given situation
Students can break material into its constituent parts and detect how the
Analyzing
parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose
Evaluating Students can make a judgment based on criteria and standards
Students can put elements together to form a novel, coherent whole or make
Creating (highest-order)
an original product
Adapted from Krathwohl DR. (2002). A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview. Theory Into Practice 41(4).
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Below are sample learning goals and objectives that ascend levels of Bloom / Krathwohl’s
cognitive domain:
• At the end of the course, students will be able to (a formulation known as SWBAT):
o identify specific stages of language acquisition
o describe the colonization of the Americas by the British, French and Spanish
o describe major theories of language development (e.g. nativist, empiricist,
interactionist, behaviorist, cognitive)
o collect and analyze research data
o articulate gaps within theories of human language acquisition
o verbally present research findings
o disseminate research findings in written form
o analyze the outcomes of the Civil War
o design a controlled experiment
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Learning Objectives
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Yale Center for Teaching and Learning
[Link] / [Link]
Learning objectives are the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities that an instructor intends
for students to learn or develop. Objectives are more specific than learning goals, which take a
10,000-foot view of gains in a course; instead, objectives have specific, measurable outcomes.
To this end, the learning activities undertaken by the class and the assessments used to gauge
student learning must match – be aligned with – the stated learning objectives.
Learning Goal: Students will develop a broader knowledge of American history.
Learning Objective: Students will be able to describe the timeline of colonization of the
Americas by the British, French, and Spanish.
Learning Goal: Students will develop discipline-specific research skills.
Learning Objective: Students will be able to design a controlled experiment.
Learning Goal: Participants will consider the use of learning objectives.
Learning Objective: Participants will develop and write learning objectives for a library
instruction session.
This chart maps verbs commonly used in learning objectives to levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy:
Bloom’s Level Sample Action Verbs
Remembering
list, define, describe, recall, label, match, observe, identify, reproduce
(lowest-order)
explain, describe, interpret, paraphrase, classify, restate, summarize, express,
Understanding
generalize, recognize
apply, choose, predict, use, illustrate, demonstrate, hypothesize, modify, interpret,
Applying
develop
contrast, distinguish, test, differentiate, categorize, compare, analyze, research,
Analyzing
examine, criticize, experiment, map, separate
Evaluating evaluate, judge, predict, argue, persuade, convince, grade, recommend, rank, select
Creating (highest- develop, create, design, construct, synthesize, compose, conjecture, formulate,
order) imagine, invent
To draft effective learning objectives, instructors can consider the following formula:
Students will be able to (ACTION VERB) a/an/the (NOUN) of/by/for (MEASURABLE
DETAIL).
