Bloom’s taxonomy: conceptual learning and questioning

Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy levels were created for educators to plan for effective instruction. The use of levels during lesson planning and assessment creation helps the teacher to reach all learning modalities.

Using Bloom’s taxonomy helped me understand how thought was classified. There were certain areas I wanted to get to when teaching a concept, and the classifications or taxonomy helped direct my questioning techniques.

To direct the questioning of my lessons, I created questions from the verbs in the taxonomic classifications. If I wanted a tall, complex question, I would use words from the areas of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

I always wanted my students to think more deeply, use problem-solving skills, discuss with their peers, and seek more information about the concept they needed to learn.

In my opinion, the fundamental idea would be that students learn a concept using Bloom’s taxonomy and transfer that knowledge to other concepts.

Understand-Explain ideas/concepts

Remember-Remember information

Analysis-Breakdown into parts

Evaluation-Justify thinking

Create-New forms, ideas, products of thought.

When creating lesson plans, I often have the taxonomy close by to make sure I’m hitting all the levels. Using the assigned syllabus, I would develop my lesson objectives, identify the skills the student needed to learn, and align my objective with the assessment.

All of my lessons contained critical thinking questions. Sometimes, I built from the knowledge level with questions that were simply recall. For example, list the steps in the writing process. If the student can identify the steps, they can begin the process of designing a piece of writing.

Today, students need to be able to understand why they need to know a concept. Having the factual knowledge of 2 x 2=4 is essential when you need to import this factual knowledge into an algebraic or geometric formula when calculating the area of ​​land to build a greenhouse to build a neighborhood garden.

He often said, “You need to know this information to create or develop this product.” Letting students know where they are going is essential for them to learn the curriculum to be taught.

Teaching synthesis (create and evaluate) after teaching knowledge and understanding of a concept helps the student put recall and understanding into a whole part. Students must be able to develop or create something new with the new information that they have been taught.

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to develop your lessons, questions, and assessments helps students and teacher focus on deeper conceptual learning.