Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Write

Effective Learning Objectives

Jul 26, 2022 | Assignments & Measuring Student Learning
What is Bloom’s Taxonomy
Bloom’s Taxonomy is a classification of the different objectives and skills that
educators set for their students otherwise known as learning objectives. The
taxonomy was proposed in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom, an educational
psychologist at the University of Chicago. The terminology has been recently
updated to include the following six levels of learning. These 6 levels can be
used to structure the learning objectives, lessons, and assessments of your
course. :

1. Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long‐

term memory.
2. Understanding: Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages
through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing,
and explaining.
3. Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure for executing or implementing.
4. Analyzing: Breaking material into constituent parts and determining how the parts relate
to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and
attributing.
5. Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking
and critiquing.
6. Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing
elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing.
Like other taxonomies, Bloom’s is hierarchical, meaning that learning at the
higher levels is dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and skills
at lower levels. You will see Bloom’s Taxonomy often displayed as a pyramid
graphic to help demonstrate this hierarchy. We have updated this pyramid into
a “cake-style” hierarchy to emphasize that each level is built on a foundation of
the previous levels.
 You may use this graphic for educational or non-profit use if you include a credit
for Jessica Shabatura and a citation back to this website.
How Bloom’s can aid in course design
Bloom’s taxonomy is a powerful tool to help develop learning objectives because
it explains the process of learning:

 Before you can understand a concept, you must remember it.

 To apply a concept you must first understand it.
 In order to evaluate a process, you must have analyzed it.
 To create an accurate conclusion, you must have completed a
thorough evaluation.
However, we don’t always start with lower-order skills and step through the
entire taxonomy for each concept you present in your course. That approach
would become tedious–for both you and your students! Instead, start by
considering the level of learners in your course:

1. Are lots of your students freshmen? Is this an “Introduction to…” course? If so, many of your
learning objectives may target the lower-order Bloom’s skills, because your students are
 building foundational knowledge. However, even in this situation, we would strive to move a
few of your objectives into the applying and analyzing level, but getting too far up in
the taxonomy could create frustration and unachievable goals.
2. Are most of your students juniors and seniors? Graduate students? Do your students have
a solid foundation in much of the terminology and processes you will be working on in your
course? If so, then you should not have
many remembering and understanding level objectives. You may need a few, for
any radically new concepts specific to your course. However, these advanced students
should be able to master higher-order learning objectives. Too many lower-level objectives
might cause boredom or apathy.
How Bloom’s works with learning objectives
Fortunately, there are “verb tables” to help identify which action verbs align
with each level in Bloom’s Taxonomy.

You may notice that some of these verbs on the table are associated with
multiple Bloom’s Taxonomy levels. These “multilevel verbs” are actions that
could apply to different activities. For example, you could have an objective
stating “At the end of this lesson, students will be able to explain the difference
between H2O and OH-.” This would be an understanding-level objective.
However, if you wanted the students to be able to “…explain the shift in the
chemical structure of water throughout its various phases.” This would be
an analyzing-level verb.
Adding to this confusion, you can locate Bloom’s verb charts that list verbs at
levels different from what we list below. Just keep in mind that it is the skill,
action, or activity you will teach using that verb that determines the Bloom’s
Taxonomy level.

Bloom’s
Level Key Verbs (keywords) Example Learning Objective

By the end of this lesson, the student

design, formulate, build, invent, will be able to design an original
create, compose, generate, derive, homework problem dealing with the
Create modify, develop. principle of conservation of energy.

Evaluate choose, support, relate, determine, By the end of this lesson, the student will be
defend, judge, grade, compare, able to determine whether using conservation of
 energy or conservation of momentum would be
contrast, argue, justify, support, more appropriate for solving a dynamics
convince, select, evaluate. problem.

classify, break down, categorize, By the end of this lesson, the student
analyze, diagram, illustrate, will be able to differentiate between potential
Analyze criticize, simplify, associate. and kinetic energy.

calculate, predict, apply, solve,

illustrate, use, demonstrate, By the end of this lesson, the student
determine, model, perform, will be able to calculate the kinetic energy of
Apply present. a projectile.

describe, explain, paraphrase,

restate, give original examples of, By the end of this lesson, the student
Underst summarize, contrast, interpret, will be able to describe Newton’s three laws
and discuss. of motion in her/his own words

list, recite, outline, define, name, By the end of this lesson, the student
Rememb match, quote, recall, identify, will be able to recite Newton’s three laws of
er label, recognize. motion.

Learning objective examples adapted from, Nelson Baker at Georgia Tech:

[email protected]
How Bloom’s works with Quality Matters
For a course to meet the Quality Matters standards, it must have measurable
learning objectives. Using a verb table like the one above will help you avoid
verbs that cannot be quantified, like: understand, learn, appreciate, or enjoy.
Quality Matters also requires that your course assessments (activities, projects,
and exams) align with your learning objectives. For example, if your learning
objective has an application-level verb, such as “present,” then you cannot
demonstrate that your students have mastered that learning objective by simply
having a multiple-choice quiz.
Course-level and lesson-level objectives
The biggest difference between course and lesson-level objectives is that we
don’t directly assess course-level objectives. Course-level objectives are just too
broad. Instead, we use several lesson-level outcomes to demonstrate mastery of
 one course-level outcome. To create good course-level objectives, we need to
ask ourselves: “What do I want the students to have mastery of at the end of
the course?” Then, after we finalize our course-level outcomes, we have to make
sure that mastery of all of the lesson-level outcomes underneath confirms that a
student has mastery of the course-level outcome–in other words, if your
students can prove (through assessment) that they can do every one of the
lesson level outcomes in that section, then you as an instructor agree they have
mastery of the course level outcome.

How Bloom’s works with course level and lesson level objectives:
 Course-level objectives are broad. You may only have 3-5 course-level
objectives. They would be difficult to measure directly because they overarch
the topics of your entire course.

 Lesson-level objectives are what we use to demonstrate that a student has

mastery of the course-level objectives. We do this by building lesson-level
objectives that build toward the course-level objective. For example, a student
might need to demonstrate mastery of 8 lesson-level objectives in order to
demonstrate mastery of one course-level objective.

 Because the lesson-level objectives directly support the course-level objectives,

they need to build up the Bloom’s Taxonomy to help your students reach
mastery of the course-level objectives. Use Bloom’s Taxonomy to make sure
that the verbs you choose for your lesson-level objectives build up to the level of
the verb that is in the course-level objective. The lesson level verbs can be
below or equal to the course level verb, but they CANNOT be higher in level. For
example, your course level verb might be an Applying level verb, “illustrate.”
Your lesson-level verbs can be from any Bloom’s level that is equal or below this
level (applying, understanding, or remembering).
Steps towards writing effective learning objectives:
1. Make sure there is one measurable verb in each objective.
2. Each objective needs one verb. Either a student can master the objective, or they fail to
master it. If an objective has two verbs (say, define and apply), what happens if a student
can define, but not apply? Are they demonstrating mastery?
3. Ensure that the verbs in the course level objective are at least at the highest Bloom’s
Taxonomy as the highest lesson level objectives that support it. (Because we can’t verify
they can evaluate if our lessons only taught them (and assessed) to define.)
4. Strive to keep all your learning objectives measurable, clear, and concise.

When you are ready to write, it can be helpful to list the level of Bloom’s next to
the verb you choose in parentheses. For example:

Course level objective 1. (apply) Demonstrate how transportation is a

critical link in the supply chain.
1.1. (understand) Discuss the changing global landscape for
businesses and other organizations that are driving change in the
global environment.
1.2. (apply) Demonstrate the special nature of transportation demand
and the influence of transportation on companies and their supply
chains operating in a global economy.

This trick will help you quickly see what level verbs you have. It will also let you
check that the course level objective is at least as high of a Bloom’s level as any
of the lesson level objectives underneath.
Before you begin constructing your objectives:
Please read our Learning Objectives: Before and After Examples page.

Additional External Resources:

For a longer list of Bloom’s Verbs – TIPS tip: You can also use the “find” function
(press: Ctrl-f or command-f on a mac) in your browser to locate specific verbs on
this list.