Bloom's Taxonomy

Megan Smith



As we continue to quickly dive into our textbook, Teaching Today: An Introduction to Education, through chapters 6 and 7, I begin to realize how complicated things are to measure in education. There are so many things to consider, and various complicated levels to divide.

Here in this practice the focus is on Bloom’s Taxonomy, which uses six methods to sort mostly the cognitive processes. It is a tool to develop outlines in measuring learning outcomes with various assessment strategies. “In using Bloom’s Taxonomy to plan your assessment procedures, you start by looking at your knowledge-level learning outcomes. Next, you choose measurement approaches that can provide information about learners’ abilities to store and recall specific bits of information.”(Armstrong p 183).

The class I am working with will be college entry course working with medieval literature, in this case we will work with the classic, Beowulf, a translation by Seamus Heaney 2000, and I will use three levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy to examine different outcomes and assessment strategies.

The first of Bloom’s methods useful in our measurements: comprehension. “Comprehension. This category requires a cognitive process that is a step beyond recall. It requires that learners not only recall specific items of information, but that they also reflect on their grasp of its meaning by interpreting, translating, or extrapolating. Many refer to this category when they say they want learners to “understand” the material.”(p183).

Outcome: The students will be expected to understand the isolation of Beowulf from the people, and draw connections between other historical facts and fables, to understand the deeper meaning behind the medieval texts.

Assessment Strategy: Students will write essay in which they find some historical fact and compare it to the fable of Beowulf, and they expand on how the stories collide morally, ethically, and historical. Finally the will interpret what they interpret as the lesson of the fable.

The second of Bloom’s methods to be utilized: analysis. “Analysis. This category refers to the ability to break complex information down into parts and to understand how the parts are related or organized. This level involves having learners understand the structure of complex information. It involves cognitive processes such as comparing and contrasting.”(p183)

Outcome: The students will be expected to understand the different characters in Beowulf, determine the protagonist and the antagonists, and determine how the characters evolve through the course of the stories; they must chronologically understand the rises and falls of characters and plot.

Assessment Strategy: The students will be asked to give a presentation. The presentation will be speech in which they explain to story of Beowulf and draw comparisons to lessons in their own lives, and how the morals of the stories connect and effect lives.

The final method of Bloom’s applied: synthesis. “Synthesis. This category refers to the cognitive processes that we usually associate with creativity. Synthesis is the reverse of analysis. It requires putting parts together in some new or unique way and might involve such tasks as writing a composition or designing a science experiment to test a theory.”(p183)

Outcome: To develop an understanding of the power of humans’ patience, compassion, forgiveness and grievances. And to understand the power of these types of stories in medieval literature, and to develop an explanation as to the original author’s possible intentions, and to understand how such a story represented a time in history. To reflect upon the power of literature and the connection to history.

Assessment Strategy: A project is assigned where students will create an outline that parallels Beowulf with any other fable and fact of the medieval times, and present it to the class modeling characters of Beowulf with the other story, using only pictures, they must orate this to the class as a speech which analyses the entire story structure and intent Then create their own fables using the morals they learned from different stories, the fable will be used for the class as challenge to meet, different for each student.

Armstrong, D.H. (2009). Teaching Today: An Introduction to Education (8^th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.