The Idea For Blooms Taxonomy - 1699 Words

The idea for Bloom’s Taxonomy was born in 1948 during an informal meeting at the American Psychological Association Convention in Boston, by Benjamin S Bloom and a committee of over 30 leading educators. (Bloom, Engelhart, Furst, Hill Krathwol, 1956 p. 4) Although the taxonomy is general referred to as Bloom’s Taxonomy, the work is considered a group product that came form many revisions. (Bloom et al., 1956 p.9) The original work of Bloom’s Taxonomy (OW) came in the form of handbook, titled the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives consisted of the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domain. (Bloom et al., 1956 p. 7) The cognitive domain focused on sex level†¦show more content†¦(Bloom et al., 1956 p. 5) However, the committee agreed that since educational objectives can be view in behavior form and behavior of individuals can be observed and measured, a classification could be applied. (Bloom et al., 1956 p. 7) To fully understand the OW, it is important to define and clarify the term taxonomy as it is used in the handbook. The term taxonomy refers to the classification systems that have made the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives so popular in the world of education today. (Seaman, 2011 p. 30) The classification system was intended to measure the degree to which student learned and intend educational behavior. (Bloom et al., 1956 p. 12) The committee likened its taxonomy system, to the classification of book in a library. (Bloom et al., 1956 p. 9) The OW classifications are; 1) Knowledge 2) Comprehension 3) Application 4) Analysis 5) Synthesis and 6) Evaluation. (Bloom et al., 1956 p. 18) These six classifications comprise a tiered learning system that teachers used to push students through when implementing an instructional model based on the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives in the OW. Each classification level presented a higher amount of rigor, which required students to think more cr itically. (McKay, 1956) The OW of Bloom’s taxonomy suggested that critical thinking and higher order skills are essential to student development. Essentially, the OW was designed to provide teachers with a