taxonomy of educational objectives

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Bloom’s taxonomy.

Background Information | The Original Taxonomy | The Revised Taxonomy | Why Use Bloom’s Taxonomy? | Further Information

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Background Information

In 1956, Benjamin Bloom with collaborators Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl published a framework for categorizing educational goals: Taxonomy of Educational Objectives . Familiarly known as Bloom’s Taxonomy , this framework has been applied by generations of K-12 teachers and college instructors in their teaching.

The framework elaborated by Bloom and his collaborators consisted of six major categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. The categories after Knowledge were presented as “skills and abilities,” with the understanding that knowledge was the necessary precondition for putting these skills and abilities into practice.

While each category contained subcategories, all lying along a continuum from simple to complex and concrete to abstract, the taxonomy is popularly remembered according to the six main categories.

The Original Taxonomy (1956)

Here are the authors’ brief explanations of these main categories in from the appendix of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives ( Handbook One , pp. 201-207):

• Knowledge “involves the recall of specifics and universals, the recall of methods and processes, or the recall of a pattern, structure, or setting.”
• Comprehension “refers to a type of understanding or apprehension such that the individual knows what is being communicated and can make use of the material or idea being communicated without necessarily relating it to other material or seeing its fullest implications.”
• Application refers to the “use of abstractions in particular and concrete situations.”
• Analysis represents the “breakdown of a communication into its constituent elements or parts such that the relative hierarchy of ideas is made clear and/or the relations between ideas expressed are made explicit.”
• Synthesis involves the “putting together of elements and parts so as to form a whole.”
• Evaluation engenders “judgments about the value of material and methods for given purposes.”

The 1984 edition of Handbook One is available in the CFT Library in Calhoun 116. See its ACORN record for call number and availability.

Barbara Gross Davis, in the “Asking Questions” chapter of Tools for Teaching , also provides examples of questions corresponding to the six categories. This chapter is not available in the online version of the book, but Tools for Teaching is available in the CFT Library. See its ACORN record for call number and availability.

The Revised Taxonomy (2001)

A group of cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists published in 2001 a revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy with the title A Taxonomy for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment . This title draws attention away from the somewhat static notion of “educational objectives” (in Bloom’s original title) and points to a more dynamic conception of classification.

The authors of the revised taxonomy underscore this dynamism, using verbs and gerunds to label their categories and subcategories (rather than the nouns of the original taxonomy). These “action words” describe the cognitive processes by which thinkers encounter and work with knowledge:

• Recognizing
• Interpreting
• Exemplifying
• Classifying
• Summarizing
• Implementing
• Differentiating
• Attributing

In the revised taxonomy, knowledge is at the basis of these six cognitive processes, but its authors created a separate taxonomy of the types of knowledge used in cognition:

• Knowledge of terminology
• Knowledge of specific details and elements
• Knowledge of classifications and categories
• Knowledge of principles and generalizations
• Knowledge of theories, models, and structures
• Knowledge of subject-specific skills and algorithms
• Knowledge of subject-specific techniques and methods
• Knowledge of criteria for determining when to use appropriate procedures
• Strategic Knowledge
• Knowledge about cognitive tasks, including appropriate contextual and conditional knowledge
• Self-knowledge

Mary Forehand from the University of Georgia provides a guide to the revised version giving a brief summary of the revised taxonomy and a helpful table of the six cognitive processes and four types of knowledge.

Why Use Bloom’s Taxonomy?

The authors of the revised taxonomy suggest a multi-layered answer to this question, to which the author of this teaching guide has added some clarifying points:

• Objectives (learning goals) are important to establish in a pedagogical interchange so that teachers and students alike understand the purpose of that interchange.
• Organizing objectives helps to clarify objectives for themselves and for students.
• “plan and deliver appropriate instruction”;
• “design valid assessment tasks and strategies”;and
• “ensure that instruction and assessment are aligned with the objectives.”

Citations are from A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives .

Further Information

Section III of A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives , entitled “The Taxonomy in Use,” provides over 150 pages of examples of applications of the taxonomy. Although these examples are from the K-12 setting, they are easily adaptable to the university setting.

Section IV, “The Taxonomy in Perspective,” provides information about 19 alternative frameworks to Bloom’s Taxonomy, and discusses the relationship of these alternative frameworks to the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy.

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Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning

Charlotte Ruhl

Research Assistant & Psychology Graduate

BA (Hons) Psychology, Harvard University

Charlotte Ruhl, a psychology graduate from Harvard College, boasts over six years of research experience in clinical and social psychology. During her tenure at Harvard, she contributed to the Decision Science Lab, administering numerous studies in behavioral economics and social psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

On This Page:

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a set of three hierarchical models used to classify educational learning objectives into levels of complexity and specificity. The three lists cover the learning objectives in cognitive, affective, and sensory domains, namely: thinking skills, emotional responses, and physical skills.

Key Takeaways

• Bloom’s Taxonomy is a hierarchical model that categorizes learning objectives into varying levels of complexity, from basic knowledge and comprehension to advanced evaluation and creation.
• Bloom’s Taxonomy was originally published in 1956, and the Taxonomy was modified each year for 16 years after it was first published.
• After the initial cognitive domain was created, which is primarily used in the classroom setting, psychologists devised additional taxonomies to explain affective (emotional) and psychomotor (physical) learning.
• In 2001, Bloom’s initial taxonomy was revised to reflect how learning is an active process and not a passive one.
• Although Bloom’s Taxonomy is met with several valid criticisms, it is still widely used in the educational setting today.

Take a moment and think back to your 7th-grade humanities classroom. Or any classroom from preschool to college. As you enter the room, you glance at the whiteboard to see the class objectives.

“Students will be able to…” is written in a red expo marker. Or maybe something like “by the end of the class, you will be able to…” These learning objectives we are exposed to daily are a product of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

What is Bloom’s Taxonomy?

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a system of hierarchical models (arranged in a rank, with some elements at the bottom and some at the top) used to categorize learning objectives into varying levels of complexity (Bloom, 1956).

You might have heard the word “taxonomy” in biology class before, because it is most commonly used to denote the classification of living things from kingdom to species.

In the same way, this taxonomy classifies organisms, Bloom’s Taxonomy classifies learning objectives for students, from recalling facts to producing new and original work.

Bloom’s Taxonomy comprises three learning domains: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. Within each domain, learning can take place at a number of levels ranging from simple to complex.

Development of the Taxonomy

Benjamin Bloom was an educational psychologist and the chair of the committee of educators at the University of Chicago.

In the mid 1950s, Benjamin Bloom worked in collaboration with Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl to devise a system that classified levels of cognitive functioning and provided a sense of structure for the various mental processes we experience (Armstrong, 2010).

Through conducting a series of studies that focused on student achievement, the team was able to isolate certain factors both inside and outside the school environment that affect how children learn.

One such factor was the lack of variation in teaching. In other words, teachers were not meeting each individual student’s needs and instead relied upon one universal curriculum.

To address this, Bloom and his colleagues postulated that if teachers were to provide individualized educational plans, students would learn significantly better.

This hypothesis inspired the development of Bloom’s Mastery Learning procedure in which teachers would organize specific skills and concepts into week-long units.

The completion of each unit would be followed by an assessment through which the student would reflect upon what they learned. 

The assessment would identify areas in which the student needs additional support, and they would then be given corrective activities to further sharpen their mastery of the concept (Bloom, 1971).

This theory that students would be able to master subjects when teachers relied upon suitable learning conditions and clear learning objectives was guided by Bloom’s Taxonomy.

The Original Taxonomy (1956)

Bloom’s Taxonomy was originally published in 1956 in a paper titled Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Bloom, 1956).

The taxonomy provides different levels of learning objectives, divided by complexity. Only after a student masters one level of learning goals, through formative assessments, corrective activities, and other enrichment exercises, can they move onto the next level (Guskey, 2005).

Cognitive Domain (1956)

Concerned with thinking and intellect.

The original version of the taxonomy, the cognitive domain, is the first and most common hierarchy of learning objectives (Bloom, 1956). It focuses on acquiring and applying knowledge and is widely used in the educational setting.

This initial cognitive model relies on nouns, or more passive words, to illustrate the different educational benchmarks.

Because it is hierarchical, the higher levels of the pyramid are dependent on having achieved the skills of the lower levels.

The individual tiers of the cognitive model from bottom to top, with examples included, are as follows:

Knowledge : recalling information or knowledge is the foundation of the pyramid and a precondition for all future levels → Example : Name three common types of meat. Comprehension : making sense out of information → Example : Summarize the defining characteristics of steak, pork, and chicken. Application : using knowledge in a new but similar form → Example : Does eating meat help improve longevity? Analysis : taking knowledge apart and exploring relationships → Example : Compare and contrast the different ways of serving meat and compare health benefits. Synthesis : using information to create something new → Example : Convert an “unhealthy” recipe for meat into a “healthy” recipe by replacing certain ingredients. Argue for the health benefits of using the ingredients you chose as opposed to the original ones. Evaluation : critically examining relevant and available information to make judgments → Example : Which kinds of meat are best for making a healthy meal and why?

Types of Knowledge

Although knowledge might be the most intuitive block of the cognitive model pyramid, this dimension is actually broken down into four different types of knowledge:

• Factual knowledge refers to knowledge of terminology and specific details.
• Conceptual knowledge describes knowledge of categories, principles, theories, and structures.
• Procedural knowledge encompasses all forms of knowledge related to specific skills, algorithms, techniques, and methods.
• Metacognitive knowledge defines knowledge related to thinking — knowledge about cognitive tasks and self-knowledge (“Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy,” n.d.).

However, this is not to say that this order reflects how concrete or abstract these forms of knowledge are (e.g., procedural knowledge is not always more abstract than conceptual knowledge).

Nevertheless, it is important to outline these different forms of knowledge to show how it is more dynamic than one may think and that there are multiple different types of knowledge that can be recalled before moving onto the comprehension phase.

And while the original 1956 taxonomy focused solely on a cognitive model of learning that can be applied in the classroom, an affective model of learning was published in 1964 and a psychomotor model in the 1970s.

The Affective Domain (1964)

Concerned with feelings and emotion.

The affective model came as a second handbook (with the first being the cognitive model) and an extension of Bloom’s original work (Krathwol et al., 1964).

This domain focuses on the ways in which we handle all things related to emotions, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasm, motivations, and attitudes (Clark, 2015).

From lowest to highest, with examples included, the five levels are:

Receiving : basic awareness → Example : Listening and remembering the names of your classmates when you meet them on the first day of school. Responding : active participation and reacting to stimuli, with a focus on responding → Example : Participating in a class discussion. Valuing : the value that is associated with a particular object or piece of information, ranging from basic acceptance to complex commitment; values are somehow related to prior knowledge and experience → Example : Valuing diversity and being sensitive to other people’s backgrounds and beliefs. Organizing : sorting values into priorities and creating a unique value system with an emphasis on comparing and relating previously identified values → Example : Accepting professional ethical standards. Characterizing : building abstract knowledge based on knowledge acquired from the four previous tiers; value system is now in full effect and controls the way you behave → Example : Displaying a professional commitment to ethical standards in the workplace.

The Psychomotor Domain (1972)

Concerned with skilled behavior.

The psychomotor domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy refers to the ability to physically manipulate a tool or instrument. It includes physical movement, coordination, and use of the motor-skill areas. It focuses on the development of skills and the mastery of physical and manual tasks.

Mastery of these specific skills is marked by speed, precision, and distance. These psychomotor skills range from simple tasks, such as washing a car, to more complex tasks, such as operating intricate technological equipment.

As with the cognitive domain, the psychomotor model does not come without modifications. This model was first published by Robert Armstrong and colleagues in 1970 and included five levels:

1) imitation; 2) manipulation; 3) precision; 4) articulation; 5) naturalization. These tiers represent different degrees of performing a skill from exposure to mastery.

Two years later, Anita Harrow (1972) proposed a revised version with six levels:

1) reflex movements; 2) fundamental movements; 3) perceptual abilities; 4) physical abilities; 5) skilled movements; 6) non-discursive communication.

This model is concerned with developing physical fitness, dexterity, agility, and body control and focuses on varying degrees of coordination, from reflexes to highly expressive movements.

That same year, Elizabeth Simpson (1972) created a taxonomy that progressed from observation to invention.

The seven tiers, along with examples, are listed below:

Perception : basic awareness → Example : Estimating where a ball will land after it’s thrown and guiding your movements to be in a position to catch it. Set : readiness to act; the mental, physical, and emotional mindsets that make you act the way you do → Example : Desire to learn how to throw a perfect strike, recognizing one’s current inability to do so. Guided Response : the beginning stage of mastering a physical skill. It requires trial and error → Example : Throwing a ball after observing a coach do so, while paying specific attention to the movements required. Mechanism : the intermediate stage of mastering a skill. It involves converting learned responses into habitual reactions so that they can be performed with confidence and proficiency → Example : Successfully throwing a ball to the catcher. Complex Overt Response : skillfully performing complex movements automatically and without hesitation → Example : Throwing a perfect strike to the catcher’s glove. Adaptation : skills are so developed that they can be modified depending on certain requirements → Example : Throwing a perfect strike to the catcher even if a batter is standing at the plate. Origination : the ability to create new movements depending on the situation or problem. These movements are derived from an already developed skill set of physical movements → Example : Taking the skill set needed to throw the perfect fastball and learning how to throw a curveball.

The Revised Taxonomy (2001)

In 2001, the original cognitive model was modified by educational psychologists David Krathwol (with whom Bloom worked on the initial taxonomy) and Lorin Anderson (a previous student of Bloom) and published with the title A Taxonomy for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment .

This revised taxonomy emphasizes a more dynamic approach to education instead of shoehorning educational objectives into fixed, unchanging spaces.

To reflect this active model of learning, the revised version utilizes verbs to describe the active process of learning and does away with the nouns used in the original version (Armstrong, 2001).

The figure below illustrates what words were changed and a slight adjustment to the hierarchy itself (evaluation and synthesis were swapped). The cognitive, affective, and psychomotor models make up Bloom’s Taxonomy.

How Bloom’s Can Aid In Course Design

Thanks to Bloom’s Taxonomy, teachers nationwide have a tool to guide the development of assignments, assessments, and overall curricula.

This model helps teachers identify the key learning objectives they want a student to achieve for each unit because it succinctly details the learning process.

The taxonomy explains that (Shabatura, 2013):

• Before you can understand a concept, you need to remember it;
• To apply a concept, you need first to understand it;
• To evaluate a process, you need first to analyze it;
• To create something new, you need to have completed a thorough evaluation

This hierarchy takes students through a process of synthesizing information that allows them to think critically. Students start with a piece of information and are motivated to ask questions and seek out answers.

Not only does Bloom’s Taxonomy help teachers understand the process of learning, but it also provides more concrete guidance on how to create effective learning objectives.

The revised version reminds teachers that learning is an active process, stressing the importance of including measurable verbs in the objectives.

And the clear structure of the taxonomy itself emphasizes the importance of keeping learning objectives clear and concise as opposed to vague and abstract (Shabatura, 2013).

Bloom’s Taxonomy even applies at the broader course level. That is, in addition to being applied to specific classroom units, Bloom’s Taxonomy can be applied to an entire course to determine the learning goals of that course.

Specifically, lower-level introductory courses, typically geared towards freshmen, will target Bloom’s lower-order skills as students build foundational knowledge.

However, that is not to say that this is the only level incorporated, but you might only move a couple of rungs up the ladder into the applying and analyzing stages.

On the other hand, upper-level classes don’t emphasize remembering and understanding, as students in these courses have already mastered these skills.

As a result, these courses focus instead on higher-order learning objectives such as evaluating and creating (Shabatura, 2013). In this way, professors can reflect upon what type of course they are teaching and refer to Bloom’s Taxonomy to determine what they want the overall learning objectives of the course to be.

Having these clear and organized objectives allows teachers to plan and deliver appropriate instruction, design valid tasks and assessments, and ensure that such instruction and assessment actually aligns with the outlined objectives (Armstrong, 2010).

Overall, Bloom’s Taxonomy helps teachers teach and helps students learn!

Critical Evaluation

Bloom’s Taxonomy accomplishes the seemingly daunting task of taking the important and complex topic of thinking and giving it a concrete structure.

The taxonomy continues to provide teachers and educators with a framework for guiding the way they set learning goals for students and how they design their curriculum.

And by having specific questions or general assignments that align with Bloom’s principles, students are encouraged to engage in higher-order thinking.

However, even though it is still used today, this taxonomy does not come without its flaws. As mentioned before, the initial 1956 taxonomy presented learning as a static concept.

Although this was ultimately addressed by the 2001 revised version that included active verbs to emphasize the dynamic nature of learning, Bloom’s updated structure is still met with multiple criticisms.

Many psychologists take issue with the pyramid nature of the taxonomy. The shape creates the false impression that these cognitive steps are discrete and must be performed independently of one another (Anderson & Krathwol, 2001).

However, most tasks require several cognitive skills to work in tandem with each other. In other words, a task will not be only an analysis or a comprehension task. Rather, they occur simultaneously as opposed to sequentially.

The structure also makes it seem like some of these skills are more difficult and important than others. However, adopting this mindset causes less emphasis on knowledge and comprehension, which are as, if not more important, than the processes towards the top of the pyramid.

Additionally, author Doug Lemov (2017) argues that this contributes to a national trend devaluing knowledge’s importance. He goes even further to say that lower-income students who have less exposure to sources of information suffer from a knowledge gap in schools.

A third problem with the taxonomy is that the sheer order of elements is inaccurate. When we learn, we don’t always start with remembering and then move on to comprehension and creating something new. Instead, we mostly learn by applying and creating.

For example, you don’t know how to write an essay until you do it. And you might not know how to speak Spanish until you actually do it (Berger, 2020).

The act of doing is where the learning lies, as opposed to moving through a regimented, linear process. Despite these several valid criticisms of Bloom’s Taxonomy, this model is still widely used today.

What is Bloom’s taxonomy?

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a hierarchical model of cognitive skills in education, developed by Benjamin Bloom in 1956.

It categorizes learning objectives into six levels, from simpler to more complex: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. This framework aids educators in creating comprehensive learning goals and assessments.

Bloom’s taxonomy explained for students?

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a framework that helps you understand and approach learning in a structured way. Imagine it as a ladder with six steps.

1. Remembering : This is the first step, where you learn to recall or recognize facts and basic concepts.

2. Understanding : You explain ideas or concepts and make sense of the information.

3. Applying : You apply what you’ve understood to solve problems in new situations.

4. Analyzing : At this step, you break information into parts to explore understandings and relationships.

5. Evaluating : This involves judging the value of ideas or materials.

6. Creating : This is the top step where you combine information to form a new whole or propose alternative solutions.

Bloom’s Taxonomy helps you learn more effectively by building your knowledge from simple remembering to higher levels of thinking.

Anderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives . New York: Longman.

Armstrong, P. (2010). Bloom’s Taxonomy. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching . Retrieved from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/

Armstrong, R. J. (1970). Developing and Writing Behavioral Objectives .

Berger, R. (2020). Here’s what’s wrong with bloom’s taxonomy: A deeper learning perspective (opinion) . Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/education/opinion-heres-whats-wrong-with-blooms-taxonomy-a-deeper-learning-perspective/2018/03

Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives. Vol. 1: Cognitive domain. New York: McKay , 20, 24.

Bloom, B. S. (1971). Mastery learning. In J. H. Block (Ed.), Mastery learning: Theory and practice (pp. 47–63). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Clark, D. (2015). Bloom’s taxonomy : The affective domain. Retrieved from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/Bloom/affective_domain.html

Guskey, T. R. (2005). Formative Classroom Assessment and Benjamin S. Bloom: Theory, Research, and Implications . Online Submission.

Harrow, A.J. (1972). A taxonomy of the psychomotor domain . New York: David McKay Co.

Krathwohl, D. R. (2002). A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy: An overview. Theory into practice, 41 (4), 212-218.

Krathwohl, D.R., Bloom, B.S., & Masia, B.B. (1964). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook II: Affective domain . New York: David McKay Co.

Lemov, D. (2017). Bloom’s taxonomy-that pyramid is a problem . Retrieved from https://teachlikeachampion.com/blog/blooms-taxonomy-pyramid-problem/

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy . (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/effective-teaching-practices/revised-blooms-taxonomy/

Shabatura, J. (2013). Using bloom’s taxonomy to write effective learning objectives . Retrieved from https://tips.uark.edu/using-blooms-taxonomy/

Simpson, E. J. (1972). The classification of educational objectives in the Psychomotor domain , Illinois University. Urbana.

Further Reading

• Kolb’s Learning Styles
• Bloom’s Taxonomy Verb Chart
• Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives. Vol. 1: Cognitive domain. New York: McKay, 20, 24.
• Krathwohl, D. R. (2002). A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy: An overview. Theory into practice, 41(4), 212-218.
• Montessori Method of Education

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Bloom’s Taxonomy

What is Bloom’s Taxonomy?

In 1956, Benjamin Bloom with collaborators Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl published a framework for categorizing educational goals:  Taxonomy of Educational Objectives .

Familiarly known as Bloom’s Taxonomy , this framework has been applied by generations of K-12 teachers, college and university instructors and professors in their teaching.

The framework elaborated by Bloom and his collaborators consisted of six major categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. The categories after Knowledge were presented as “skills and abilities,” with the understanding that knowledge was the necessary precondition for putting these skills and abilities into practice.

The Revised Taxonomy (2001)

While each category contained subcategories, all lying along a continuum from simple to complex and concrete to abstract, the taxonomy is popularly remembered according to the six main categories.

A group of cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists published in 2001 a revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy with the title A Taxonomy for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment . This title draws attention away from the somewhat static notion of “educational objectives” (in Bloom’s original title) and points to a more dynamic conception of classification.

The authors of the revised taxonomy underscore this dynamism, using verbs and gerunds to label their categories and subcategories (rather than the nouns of the original taxonomy). These “action words” describe the cognitive processes by which thinkers encounter and work with knowledge.

Course Objectives

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a hierarchical classification of the different levels of thinking, and should be applied when creating course objectives. Course objectives are brief statements that describe what students will be expected to learn by the end of the course. Many instructors have learning objectives when developing a course. However, many instructors do not write learning objectives. The full power of learning objectives is realized when the learning objectives are explicitly stated. Writing clear learning objectives are critical to creating and teaching a course.

Evolution and Application

Read this Ultimate Guide to gain a deep understanding of Bloom's taxonomy, how it has evolved over the decades and how it can be effectively applied in the learning process to benefit both educators and learners.

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Understanding education and its objectives

Bloom’s cognitive domains, a revision of bloom’s taxonomy.

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• Table Of Contents

Bloom’s taxonomy , taxonomy of educational objectives, developed in the 1950s by the American educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom, which fostered a common vocabulary for thinking about learning goals. Bloom’s taxonomy engendered a way to align educational goals, curricula, and assessments that are used in schools, and it structured the breadth and depth of the instructional activities and curriculum that teachers provide for students. Few educational theorists or researchers have had as profound an impact on American educational practice as Bloom.

Throughout the 20th century, educators explored a variety of different ways to make both explicit and implicit the educational objectives taught by teachers, particularly in early education. In the early 20th century, objectives were referred to as aims or purposes , and in the early 21st century, they evolved into standards . During much of the 20th century, educational reformers who wanted to more clearly describe what teachers should teach began to use the word objectives , which referred to the type of student learning outcomes to be evidenced in classrooms. Bloom’s taxonomy was one of the most significant representations of those learning outcomes.

Bloom’s work was not only in a cognitive taxonomy but also constituted a reform in how teachers thought about the questioning process within the classroom. Indeed, the taxonomy was originally structured as a way of helping faculty members think about the different types of test items that could be used to measure student academic growth. Bloom and a group of assessment experts he assembled began their work in 1949 and completed their efforts in 1956 when they published Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain .

Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy originally was represented by six different domain levels: (1) knowledge, (2) comprehension, (3) application, (4) analysis, (5) synthesis, and (6) evaluation. All of the Bloom domains focused on the knowledge and cognitive processes. The American educational psychologist David Krathwohl and some of his associates subsequently focused on the affective domain, which is concerned with student interests, attitudes, and feelings. Another American educational psychologist, Anita Harrow, developed the psychomotor domains, which deal with a wide variety of motor skills. Bloom’s work was most noted for its focus on the cognitive. Bloom became closely associated with the cognitive dimension even though, in subsequent work, he often examined the wide variety of “entry” characteristics (cognitive and affective) that students evidenced when they began their schooling.

Each of Bloom’s cognitive domains enabled educators to begin differentiating the type of content being taught as well as the complexity of the content. The domains are particularly useful for educators who are thinking about the questioning process within the classroom, with questions ranging in complexity from lower-order types of knowledge to higher-order questions that would require more complex and comprehensive thought. Bloom’s taxonomy enabled teachers to think in a structured way about how they question students and deliver content. The taxonomy, in both its original and revised versions, helped teachers understand how to enhance and improve instructional delivery by aligning learning objectives with student assessments and by enhancing the learning goals for students in terms of cognitive complexity.

The following list presents the structure of the original framework, with examples of questions at each of the six domain levels:

• Knowledge Level: At this level the teacher is attempting to determine whether the students can recognize and recall information. Example: What countries were involved in the War of 1812 ?
• Comprehension Level: At this level the teacher wants the students to be able to arrange or, in some way, organize information. Example: In the book Teammates the authors describe Jackie Robinson ’s struggles as a baseball player and the way in which Pee Wee Reese publicly defended Robinson. Describe in your own words the struggles that Robinson had and what Reese did to help him succeed as a baseball player.
• Application Level: At this level the teacher begins to use abstractions to describe particular ideas or situations. Example: What would be the probable influence of a change in temperature on a chemical such as hydrochloric acid ?
• Analysis Level: At this level the teacher begins to examine elements and the relationships between elements or the operating organizational principles undergirding an idea. Example: Describe the way in which slavery contributed to the American Civil War .
• Synthesis Level: At this level the teacher is beginning to help students put conceptual elements or parts together in some new plan of operation or development of abstract relationships. Example: Formulate a hypothesis about the reasons for South Carolina ’s decision to secede from the Union.
• Evaluation Level: At this level the teacher helps students understand the complexity of ideas so that they can recognize how concepts and facts are either logically consistent or illogically developed. Example: Was it an ethical decision to take to trial the Nazi war criminals and to subsequently put so many of them to death?

Bloom focuses primarily on the cognitive dimension; most teachers rely heavily on the six levels of the cognitive domain to shape the way in which they deliver content in the classroom. Originally Bloom thought about the characteristics that students possess when they enter school, and he divided those characteristics into the affective and the cognitive. From Bloom’s perspective the learning outcomes are a result of the type of learning environment a student is experiencing and the quality of the instruction the teacher is providing. The affective elements included the students’ readiness and motivation to learn; the cognitive characteristics included the prior understandings the students possessed before they entered the classroom. In essence, a student who had an extensive personal vocabulary and came from a reading-rich home environment would be more ready to learn than the student who had been deprived of such opportunities during his preschool years. In the early 21st century, some reformers described this as the “knowledge gap” and specifically highlighted the fact that students from low socioeconomic settings have less access to books and a lower exposure to a rich home vocabulary. In essence, some of Bloom’s original ideas continued to be reinforced in the educational research literature.

Many researchers had begun to rethink the way in which educational objectives were presented by teachers, and they developed a revision of Bloom’s taxonomy in 2001. The revised taxonomy was developed by using many of the same processes and approaches that Bloom had used a half century earlier. In the new taxonomy, two dimensions are presented: the knowledge dimension and the cognitive dimension. There are four levels on the knowledge dimension: factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive. There are six levels on the cognitive process dimension: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. The new taxonomy enabled teachers to think more in depth about the content that they are teaching and the objectives they are focusing on within the classroom. It allowed teachers to categorize objectives in a more-multidimensional way and to do so in a manner that allows them to see the complex relationships between knowledge and cognitive processes.

The original Bloom’s taxonomy allowed teachers to categorize content and questions at different levels. The new two-dimensional model enabled teachers to see the relationship between and among the objectives for the content being taught and to also examine how that material should be taught and how it might be assessed. By examining both the knowledge level and the cognitive processes, teachers were better equipped to consider the complex nature of the learning process and also better equipped to assess what the students learn.

The new taxonomy did not easily spread among practitioners, in part because most classroom teachers remained unfamiliar with the new taxonomic approach and because many professional development experts (including those in teacher-education institutions) continued to rely on the original taxonomy. The new model was in many ways just as significant as the original taxonomy. The original approach provided a structure for how people thought about facts, concepts , and generalizations and offered a common language for thinking about and communicating educational objectives. In essence, it helped teachers think more clearly about the structure and nature of knowledge. The new taxonomy helped teachers see how complex knowledge really is.

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy

Revised bloom's taxonomy, essential resources.

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy Model (Responsive Version)

Download the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (PDF)

The authors of the revised taxonomy underscore this dynamism, using verbs and gerunds to label their categories and subcategories (rather than the nouns of the original taxonomy). These “action words” describe the cognitive processes by which thinkers encounter and work with knowledge.

A statement of a learning objective contains a verb (an action) and an object (usually a noun).

• The verb generally refers to [actions associated with] the intended cognitive process .
• The object generally describes the knowledge students are expected to acquire or construct. (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001, pp. 4–5)

The cognitive process dimension represents a continuum of increasing cognitive complexity—from remember to create. Anderson and Krathwohl identify 19 specific cognitive processes that further clarify the bounds of the six categories (Table 1).

Table 1. The Cognitive Process Dimension – categories, cognitive processes (and alternative names)

recognizing (identifying)

recalling (retrieving)

interpreting (clarifying, paraphrasing, representing, translating)

exemplifying (illustrating, instantiating)

classifying (categorizing, subsuming)

summarizing (abstracting, generalizing)

inferring (concluding, extrapolating, interpolating, predicting)

comparing (contrasting, mapping, matching)

explaining (constructing models)

executing (carrying out)

implementing (using)

differentiating (discriminating, distinguishing, focusing, selecting)

organizing (finding, coherence, integrating, outlining, parsing, structuring)

attributing (deconstructing)

checking (coordinating, detecting, monitoring, testing)

critiquing (judging)

generating (hypothesizing)

planning (designing)

producing (construct)

The knowledge dimension represents a range from concrete (factual) to abstract (metacognitive) (Table 2). Representation of the knowledge dimension as a number of discrete steps can be a bit misleading. For example, all procedural knowledge may not be more abstract than all conceptual knowledge. And metacognitive knowledge is a special case. In this model, “ metacognitive knowledge is knowledge of [one’s own] cognition and about oneself in relation to various subject matters . . . ” (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001, p. 44).

Table 2. The Knowledge Dimension

• knowledge of terminology
• knowledge of specific details and elements
• knowledge of classifications and categories
• knowledge of principles and generalizations
• knowledge of theories, models, and structures
• knowledge of subject-specific skills and algorithms
• knowledge of subject-specific techniques and methods
• knowledge of criteria for determining when to use appropriate procedures

Metacognitive

• strategic knowledge
• knowledge about cognitive tasks, including appropriate contextual and conditional knowledge
• self-knowledge

Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy Model (Responsive)

Note: These are learning objectives – not learning activities . It may be useful to think of preceding each objective with something like, “students will be able to…:

The Knowledge Dimension

The basic elements a student must know to be acquainted with a discipline or solve problems in it.

The interrelationships among the basic elements within a larger structure that enable them to function together.

How to do something, methods of inquiry, and criteria for using skills, algorithms, techniques, and methods.

Knowledge of cognition in general as well as awareness and knowledge of one’s own cognition

The Cognitive Process Dimension

Retrieve relevant knowledge from long-term memory.

Remember + Factual

List primary and secondary colors.

Remember + Conceptual

Recognize symptoms of exhaustion.

Remember + Procedural

Recall how to perform CPR.

Remember + Metacognitive

Identify strategies for retaining information.

Construct meaning from instructional messages, including oral, written and graphic communication.

Understand + Factual

Summarize features of a new product.

Understand + Conceptual

Classify adhesives by toxicity.

Understand + Procedural

Clarify assembly instructions.

Understand + Metacognitive

Predict one’s response to culture shock.

Carry out or use a procedure in a given situation.

Apply + Factual

Respond to frequently asked questions.

Apply + Conceptual

Provide advice to novices.

Apply + Procedural

Carry out pH tests of water samples.

Apply + Metacognitive

Use techniques that match one's strengths.

Break material into foundational parts and determine how parts relate to one another and the overall structure or purpose

Analyze + Factual

Select the most complete list of activities.

Analyze + Conceptual

Differentiate high and low culture.

Analyze + Procedural

Integrate compliance with regulations.

Analyze + Metacognitive

Deconstruct one's biases.

Make judgments based on criteria and standards.

Evaluate + Factual

Check for consistency among sources.

Evaluate + Conceptual

Determine relevance of results.

Evaluate + Procedural

Judge efficiency of sampling techniques.

Evaluate + Metacognitive

Reflect on one's progress.

Put elements together to form a coherent whole; reorganize into a new pattern or structure.

Create + Factual

Generate a log of daily activities.

Create + Conceptual

Assemble a team of experts.

Create + Procedural

Design efficient project workflow.

Create + Metacognitive

Create a learning portfolio.

Recommended resources

• Developing Student Learning Outcome Statements (Georgia Tech) page
• Churches, A. (2008). Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy.  A thorough orientation to the revised taxonomy; practical recommendations for a wide variety of ways mapping the taxonomy to the uses of current online technologies; and associated rubrics
• Download the Blooms Digital Taxonomy of Verbs poster (Wasabi Learning)
• Bloom et al.’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain (Dr. William G. Huitt, Valdosta State University)
• Stanny, C. J. (2016). Reevaluating Bloom’s Taxonomy: What measurable verbs can and cannot say about student learning. Education Sciences, 6 (4). https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci6040037
• The Best Resources For Helping Teachers Use Bloom’s Taxonomy In The Classroom (Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…)

*Anderson, L.W. (Ed.), Krathwohl, D.R. (Ed.), Airasian, P.W., Cruikshank, K.A., Mayer, R.E., Pintrich, P.R., Raths, J., & Wittrock, M.C. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Complete edition). New York: Longman.

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Objectives

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• Aytac Gogus 2  

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Bloom’s domain ; Bloom’s taxonomy of learning domains ; Classification of levels of intellectual behavior in learning ; The classification of educational objectives ; The taxonomy of educational objectives

Taxonomy means a scientific process of classifying things and arranging them into groups. Learning objectives are statements of what a learner is expected to know, understand, and/or be able to demonstrate after completion of a process of learning. In 1956, Benjamin S. Bloom (1913–1999) and a group of educational psychologists developed a hierarchy of educational objectives, which is generally referred to as Bloom’s Taxonomy , and which attempts to identify six levels within the cognitive domain, from the simplest to the most complex behavior, which includes knowledge , comprehension , application , analysis , synthesis , and evaluation . Bloom’s Taxonomy refers to a classification of the different learning objectives that educators set for learners.

Theoretical Background

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Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: a revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. In P. W. Airasian, K. A. Cruikshank, R. E. Mayer, P. R. Pintrich, J. Raths, & M. C. Wittrock (Eds.), A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: a revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives . New York: Longman.

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Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: the classification of educational goals; Handbook I: Cognitive domain. In M. D. Engelhart, E. J. Furst, W. H. Hill, & D. R. Krathwohl (Eds.), Taxonomy of educational objectives: the classification of educational goals; Handbook I: Cognitive domain . New York: David McKay.

Clark, D. (2009). Bloom’s taxonomy of learning domains. Retrieved from the Web on Dec 1, 2009: http://www.nwlink.com/~Donclark/hrd/bloom.html .

Krathwohl, D. R. (2002). A revision of bloom’s taxonomy: an overview. Theory into Practice, 41 (4), 212–218.

Krathwohl, D. R., Bloom, B. S., & Masia, B. B. (1964). Taxonomy of educational objectives: the classification of educational goals (Affective domain, Vol. Handbook II). New York: David McKay.

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Gogus, A. (2012). Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Objectives. In: Seel, N.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_141

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The Definitive Guide to Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s taxonomy has long been used by teachers everywhere to help plan lessons and designing curricula but what is it and how can it be used?

What is Bloom’s Taxonomy? Bloom’s taxonomy (the cognitive domain) is a hierarchical arrangement of 6 processes where each level involves a deeper cognitive understanding. The levels go from simplest to complex: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, Create. They allow students to build on their prior understanding.

I think you’ll agree with me when I say, finding a learning theory that most teachers agree on is like hunting for the lost city of Atlantis.

It turns out that it’s been staring us in the face all along!

Unless you have been living under a rock or in a dark cave for your entire teaching career, you will have come across Bloom’s Taxonomy.

In this definitive guide, I will explain where it came from, what it is exactly and how you can implement it in YOUR classroom!

Who was Benjamin Bloom?

Benjamin Bloom (1913 – 1999), was an American educational psychologist who developed a classification of learning levels (now known as Bloom’s Taxonomy) with his colleagues.

Bloom studied at Pennsylvania State University, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1942, where he worked with the highly respected education expert Ralph Tyler and was a talented teacher and was especially interested in students’ thought processes while learning.

Benjamin Bloom Biography

Bloom was born on 21st Feb.1913 in Lansford, Pennsylvania. During his early childhood and adolescence, he was extremely interested in the world around him and methods of acquiring knowledge and information.

He loved to read and write research papers and continued to do so throughout his career, using the vast amount of knowledge he gained in his professional work.

He was extremely devoted to his family, wife, and sons. He taught his children various useful skills, often listening to and composing music and playing board games with them.

Bloom’s Pedagogical Research

Bloom had an excellent career. In the early years, he was the director of the examining board of the University of Chicago, heading a group of leading school psychologists with whom he worked to advance this scientific discipline.

As part of his work at the university, he founded the MESA (Measurement, Evaluation, Statistical Analysis) program.

The MESA program encourages scientists and analysts to think deeply about the manner and practice of assessment. Also, Bloom was chairman of the Faculty Admissions Committee.

The Birth of the Mastery Model

In his research, Bloom concluded that achieving the highest results in a particular field of work requires at least decades of dedication, renunciation and hard work.

Bloom surveyed a sample of about 120 leading mathematicians, physicists, biochemists, artists, pianists, athletes (tennis players, swimmers etc).

The result of the research showed that each of them needed at least 10-15 years of hard work (learning, practising, coaching) and dedication to achieve mastery in their specific area of ​​expertise.

The role of educators, teachers, and professors during their professional work improves the conditions in the environment of students to express their knowledge, talents of ingenuity in the highest possible sense.

In 1957, he was sent by the Ford Foundation to conduct an evaluation survey in India which led to the revision of their examination and evaluation system.

Bloom was quite rightly recognized as an advisor to education around the world. His work on learning theories is essential study material for any teacher

He also complimented his rich career with activism at the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievements (IEA).

Who was Benjamin Bloom Influenced by?

Bloom believed that learning was a process and that it was the teacher’s job to plan lessons and assignments to help students achieve the set goals.

Ralph W. Tyler

Bloom’s work on setting goals for educational evaluation and the curriculum was influenced by his mentor Ralph W. Tyler (1902-1994) .

Bloom was a researcher under Tyler’s mentorship during a distinguished Eight-Year Study (1934 -1942).

The goal of the study was to allow schools to investigate and evaluate alternative methods of assessment in schools.

Tyler worked on the theory and development of the curriculum and the evaluation of the educational process. Promoting behavioral goals, he understood learning as a process of adopting new behaviors.

John B. Carroll

John B. Carrol (1916 – 2003) was an American psychologist and author of “ School Learning Model “. Bloom was impressed with Carrolls’ optimism, especially the idea that differentiates students only in the views they take to learn the material.

Then, with the help of a teacher, each child could achieve a certain, required level of knowledge.

Bloom was also influenced by the work of pioneers in individualized teaching, especially Washburne (1922) and his Winnetka Plan and Morrison (1926) and his school experiment.

Individualized Learning

The advantage of individual learning and mentoring is that if a student makes a mistake, he/she receives feedback from a mentor, then a correction follows to ensure the performance and high quality of work.

Successful students search the textbook and relevant sources for correcting mistakes so that they do not repeat themselves.

With the help of his mentor, Bloom developed methods that would create a master of science from students, not just those who would memorize theory and facts and repeat the lessons learned.

Elliot W. Eisner

Elliot W. Eisner (1933 – 2014) was Bloom’s student in the education department of the University of Chicago.

Bloom helped his students understand through their own experiences.

Most professors would try to explain the theory but Bloom worked through experiments with students. Bloom inspired his students and associates to dedicate themselves and explore educational opportunities.

He was an optimist based on real facts.

According to Eisner, Bloom was in love with the discovery process and developing strategies in a scientific way.

Benjamin Bloom made a significant impact on the scientific work of his students, contemporaries, and associates.

“After forty years of intensive research on school learning in the United States as well as abroad, my major conclusion is: What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn if provided with appropriate prior and current conditions of learning.” “Developing Talent in Young People” by Benjamin Bloom”

Bloom’s Domains of Learning

With his colleagues David Krathwohl and Anne Harrow, Bloom proposed three domains of learning; The cognitive domain (knowledge), the affective domain (attitudes) and the psychomotor domain (skills).

The Cognitive Domain (Bloom’s Taxonomy)

The first of the domains to be proposed was the cognitive domain (1956), this is the one we commonly refer to as Bloom’s taxonomy.

Taxonomy is a scientific discipline that classifies certain organisms based on their similarities and differences.

The cognitive domain suggests that objectives can be ranked in order of their cognitive difficulty.

It is these ranked classifications that teachers across the world are familiar with. The original order ranging from “knowledge” at the most basic to “evaluation” at the most cognitively taxing, is as follows:

• Understanding
• Application

Bloom’s taxonomy is not a simple classification scheme – it is an effort to arrange different thought processes hierarchically.

Each level depends on the student’s ability to complete the previous level or previous levels (phases) For example, a student applying knowledge (Phase 3), he must have certain information (phase 1) and at the same time understand that information (phase 2).

We also see Bloomian cognitive learning rooted in Rosenshine’s Principles of instruction.

The Hierarchical Structure of Cognition

K nowledge . (remember previously learned content)..

Requirements or instructions that trigger typical knowledge-seeking or identifiable activities. Instructional words you could use include:

List, recite, define, name, match, quote, recall, tell, label, recognize, arrange, order, state, relate, repeat, duplicate.

Example. State: Who is the hero in this story?

U nderstanding . (Mastered the meaning of the content).

This level refers to the student’s ability to understand what is being said, to be able to present in his or her way the content and to understand the conclusions that follow directly from content, claims or results.

Describe, explain, paraphrase, summarize, interpret, identify, classify, report, indicate, formulate, express, translate, review.

Example. Explain in your own words, what is the story about?

Application. (Applies the learned in new and concrete situations).

This is about the ability to use some abstractions in specific situations, that is, to solve problems using learned concepts, ideas, rules, or procedures.

Related activities are initiated by the following instructions in the students:

Predict, expand, compare, classify, calculate, apply, solve, illustrate, use, demonstrate, determine, model, operate, choose, select, perform.

Example: Using what you have learnt about group one metals, predict what will happen when you put a chunk of Lithium in the water.

A nalysis . (Breaks down the content and structure of the material).

This level of educational goals is based on logical thinking. To achieve the objectives appropriate to the level of analysis, students should be instructed such as:

Distinguish, confirm, sketch, list all possible consequences, categorize, organize, translate, contrast, differentiate, question, investigate, examine, determine, compare, discriminate, detect, calculate, classify, outline, analyze.

Example: Based on your experiment, what chemical reaction leads to …?

S ynthesis . (Formulates and builds new structures from existing knowledge and skills).

This level of goal implies the ability to combine known elements and create a new whole, model, or structure that did not exist before.

The core of achieving this category of goals lies in creative thinking. Students will perform appropriate activities aimed at achieving the goals from this level based on the following instructions:

Create, invent, elaborate, summarize, make, picture, imagine, modify, connect, define assumptions, predict, determine keywords (basic thesis, title) combine, minimize, assemble, plan, generalize, manage, write, conclude, prepare, design, formulate, build, compose, generate, derive.

Example: What would the world look like if humans suddenly vanished?

E valuation . (Judges the value of the content for a given purpose).

The objectives at the evaluation level are standards that can be set by the learner, it is their own personal interpretation. Evaluative goals can be initiated by the instructions:

Evaluate, prove, refute, argue, justify, support, convince, debate, resolve the ambiguity, weigh, prioritize, judge.

Example: Justify your opinion on climate change?

Bloom’s Taxonomy Revised

Bloom’s taxonomy was revised by Lorin Anderson , a former Bloom student, and David Krathwohl , Bloom’s original research partner.

Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) redefined the neuro-cognitive processes in the taxonomy and further arranged them hierarchically by listing the corresponding sublevels.

The revised taxonomy retains six levels of educational goals, but now these are formulated as actions (verbs, not nouns as in Bloom’s taxonomy), thus making them easier for teachers to use.

The last two levels have reversed places, so the order is now as follows:

Bloom’s Taxonomy provides a framework for teachers, helping them write and plan the goals and objectives of their lessons .

Its main benefit is that it allows teachers to more clearly differentiate their lesson’s goals.

Another change was to introduce another dimension that more consistently defines the subcategories within each major level.

In this second dimension, different types of knowledge are represented:

Knowledge of facts and data . (Knowledge of terminology and knowledge of specific details and elements of some content).

Conceptual knowledge . (Knowledge of classifications and categories, knowledge of principles and generalizations and knowledge of theories, models and structures).

P rocedural knowledge . (Knowledge of subject-specific skills and knowledge of algorithms, knowledge of subject-specific techniques and methods, and knowledge of the criteria for applying appropriate procedures).

M etacognitive knowledge . (Knowledge of strategies, knowledge of what it takes to work on tasks, knowledge of oneself).

Bloom’s publication Taxonomy of Educational Objectives has become widely used around the world to assist in the preparation of evaluation materials.

Many teachers make extensive use of Bloom’s taxonomy, thanks to the structure it provides in areas such as level assessment knowledge.

Due to its comprehensiveness as a learning theory , Bloom’s taxonomy is applicable in different educational situations, at all levels and areas of learning, and is therefore recommended as an indispensable tool in the practice of every teacher.

The Affective Domain

Affective domain – attitudes, values, and interests.

Krathwohl and Bloom proposed the affective domain in 1964 (8 years after the cognitive domain). Like the cognitive domain, it too divides its objectives into hierarchical subdivisions.

This domain addresses the issues of the emotional component of learning and ranges from a basic willingness to receive information to the integration of beliefs, ideas, and attitudes.

The ranked domain subcategories range from “receiving” at the lower end up to “characterization” at the top. The full ranked list is as follows:

• Receiving. Being aware of an external stimulus (feel, sense, experience).
• Responding. Responding to the external stimulus (satisfaction, enjoyment, contribute)
• Valuing. Referring to the student’s belief or appropriation of worth (showing preference or respect).
• Organization. The conceptualizing and organizing of values (examine, clarify, integrate.)
• Characterization. The ability to practice and act on their values. (Review, conclude, judge).

As with the cognitive domain, it is assumed that learning at lower levels is a prerequisite for reaching the next, higher level.

To explain the way we approach things from an emotional point of view, Bloom and his colleagues have developed five basic categories:

Receiving refers to the willingness to receive information. For example, an individual accepts the obligation to be in class, listens to others with respect, shows an interest in social issues.

Responding refers to the active participation of an individual in their education.

For example, an individual shows interest in the subject is willing to prepare a presentation, participate in class discussions and likes to help others.

Valuation ranges from simply accepting some value in the lesson to commitment.

For example, an individual expresses faith in democratic processes, respects the role of science in everyday life, shows concern for the well-being of others or shows an understanding of personal and cultural differences.

O rganization refers to the process a person goes through when he or she associates different values, resolves conflicts between them, and begins to adopt them. They adjust behavior to a value system.

For example, they start to recognize the need for a balance between freedom and responsibility in a democracy, accept responsibility for one’s behavior, accept standards of professional ethics or adapts behavior to their new value system.

Characterization is the level of adoption, an individual has a developed system of evaluation in terms of their own beliefs, ideas, and attitudes that guide their behavior consistently and predictably.

For example, They will express confidence in working independently, demonstrate a commitment to the ethics, demonstrate good personal, social and emotional adjustment and lives out healthy life habits.

The Psychomotor Domain

Psychomotor domain – skills.

The psychomotor domain refers to human movement from a psychological perspective, those objectives that are specific to reflex actions, interpretive movements and discreet physical functions.

It is a misunderstanding of the psychomotor domain that physical objectives that support cognitive learning fit the psycho-motor label, e.g.; learning how to chop vegetables or sanding a piece of wood.

These physical actions are a vector for cognitive learning, not psycho-motor learning.

The psychomotor domain is concerned with how we recognize the world around us using our bodies and senses.

For example how we such as learning how to serve in tennis or perform multiple somersaults in high diving or trampolining.

This third domain has received the least attention than the previous two. Bloom and his colleagues did not complete their work on the psychomotor domain leading to later research by other authors.

R.H. Dave (1970)

Dave’s psychomotor domain is perhaps the most common version and can be the simplest to apply as a learning theory .

It deals with levels of competency in a physical task. Dave suggested five levels from the initial discovery to mastery of the physical skill.

Elizabeth Simpson (1972)

Simpson’s psychomotor domain is concerned with using and coordinating motor skills. it is a track towards mastery.

Anita Harrow (1972)

Anita Harrow published her paper in 1972; “ A Taxonomy of the Psychomotor Domain “ . In it, she classified different types of learning in the psycho-motor domain ranging from reflex actions to those require precise control.

How Is Bloom’s Taxonomy Used in the Classroom?

Bloom’s taxonomy has been developed precisely to help teachers formulate learning outcomes and as a guide to devising assessment criteria tailored to the type of cognitive domains and mental and companion skills being assessed.

The research done by Bloom and his colleagues has multiple implications for teaching practice and the quality of education.

It allows teachers to adequately plan their teaching while respecting the individual abilities of students, as well as using different learning and education strategies , innovating practice and adequately assessing students’ knowledge and skills.

Based on the insights gained from such monitoring, teachers can make meaningful adjustments to their curriculum to devote more attention and time to those goals that they did not recognize through their students’ learning journey.

If teachers involve the students themselves in this process, encouraging them to self-assess by comparing expected and achieved outcomes, it will also contribute to the development of learning motivation.

Student self-assessment is a brilliant tool for developing students’ responsibility for their progress and success in learning.

After reviewing the work of Bloom and his associates, it is evident that his contribution to the planning, organization and structuring of the educational process is remarkable.

Bloom’s Taxonomy FAQ

The three domains that form Bloom’s taxonomy are; the cognitive domain (knowledge), the affective domain (attitudes, values, and interests) and the psychomotor domain (skills).

The 6 levels that make up the cognitive domain (the domain commonly referred to as Bloom’s taxonomy are (from simplest to most complex): remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create.

Bloom’s taxonomy is not a simple classification scheme – it is a hierarchical arrangement of cognitive processes that lend themselves perfectly to teachers planning lessons and allowing students to build upon their prior understanding.

Bloom and his collaborators have provided a framework upon which teachers can build lessons and curricula, students must master one level before building to mastery of subsequent levels.

Dealing with knowledge, the cognitive domain is a hierarchical scaffold where each level involves a deeper cognitive understanding.

The affective domain (sometimes referred to as the feeling domain), is focused on the emotional aspect of learning. It takes into account attitudes, values and interests.

The psychomotor domain refers to human movement from a psychological perspective. It involves those objectives that are specific to reflex actions, interpretive movements and discreet physical functions.

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An excellent explanation of teaching and learning levels and skills.

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Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

One of the most widely used ways of organizing levels of expertise is according to Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. (Bloom et al., 1994; Gronlund, 1991; Krathwohl et al., 1956.) Bloom’s Taxonomy (Tables 1-3) uses a multi-tiered scale to express the level of expertise required to achieve each measurable student outcome. Organizing measurable student outcomes in this way will allow us to select appropriate classroom assessment techniques for the course.

There are three taxonomies. Which of the three to use for a given measurable student outcome depends upon the original goal to which the measurable student outcome is connected. There are knowledge-based goals, skills-based goals, and affective goals (affective: values, attitudes, and interests); accordingly, there is a taxonomy for each. Within each taxonomy, levels of expertise are listed in order of increasing complexity. Measurable student outcomes that require the higher levels of expertise will require more sophisticated classroom assessment techniques.

The course goal in Figure 2–“student understands proper dental hygiene”–is an example of a knowledge-based goal. It is knowledge-based because it requires that the student learn certain facts and concepts. An example of a skills-based goal for this course might be “student flosses teeth properly.” This is a skills-based goal because it requires that the student learn how to do something. Finally, an affective goal for this course might be “student cares about proper oral hygiene.” This is an affective goal because it requires that the student’s values, attitudes, or interests be affected by the course.

Table 1: Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives for Knowledge-Based Goals

Table 2: Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives for Skills-Based Goals

Table 3: Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives for Affective Goals

To determine the level of expertise required for each measurable student outcome, first decide which of these three broad categories (knowledge-based, skills-based, and affective) the corresponding course goal belongs to. Then, using the appropriate Bloom’s Taxonomy, look over the descriptions of the various levels of expertise. Determine which description most closely matches that measurable student outcome. As can be seen from the examples given in the three Tables, there are different ways of representing measurable student outcomes, e.g., as statements about students (Figure 2), as questions to be asked of students (Tables 1 and 2), or as statements from the student’s perspective (Table 3). You may find additional ways of representing measurable student outcomes; those listed in Figure 2 and in Tables 1-3 are just examples.

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a convenient way to describe the degree to which we want our students to understand and use concepts, to demonstrate particular skills, and to have their values, attitudes, and interests affected. It is critical that we determine the levels of student expertise that we are expecting our students to achieve because this will determine which classroom assessment techniques are most appropriate for the course. Though the most common form of classroom assessment used in introductory college courses–multiple choice tests–might be quite adequate for assessing knowledge and comprehension (levels 1 and 2, Table 1), this type of assessment often falls short when we want to assess our students knowledge at the higher levels of synthesis and evaluation (levels 5 and 6).4

Multiple-choice tests also rarely provide information about achievement of skills-based goals. Similarly, traditional course evaluations, a technique commonly used for affective assessment, do not generally provide useful information about changes in student values, attitudes, and interests.

Thus, commonly used assessment techniques, while perhaps providing a means for assigning grades, often do not provide us (or our students) with useful feedback for determining whether students are attaining our course goals. Usually, this is due to a combination of not having formalized goals to begin with, not having translated those goals into outcomes that are measurable, and not using assessment techniques capable of measuring expected student outcomes given the levels of expertise required to achieve them. Using the CIA model of course development, we can ensure that our curriculum, instructional methods, and classroom assessment techniques are properly aligned with course goals.

Note that Bloom’s Taxonomy need not be applied exclusively after course goals have been defined. Indeed, Bloom’s Taxonomy and the words associated with its different categories can help in the goals-defining process itself. Thus, Bloom’s Taxonomy can be used in an iterative fashion to first state and then refine course goals. Bloom’s Taxonomy can finally be used to identify which classroom assessment techniques are most appropriate for measuring these goals.

Bloom, B. S., Englehart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H., & Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). The Taxonomy of educational objectives, handbook I: The Cognitive domain . New York: David McKay Co., Inc.

Gronlund, N. E. (1991). How to write and use instructional objectives (4th ed.). New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.

Krathwohl, D.R., Bloom, B.S., & Masia, B.B. (1964). Taxonomy of educational objectives, the classification of educational goals, handbook II: Affective domain . New York: David McKay Co., Inc.

Center for Teaching Innovation

Bloom's taxonomy.

Benjamin Bloom et al. (1956 ) published the following framework, which articulates hierarchical categories of educational objectives. This framework, updated in 2001, continues to inform the articulation of educational learning outcomes and learning task descriptions.

The following tables offer a list of verbs representing a hierarchy of learning levels from basic knowledge to the highest level of creativity. These verbs may also be considered beyond the realm of cognitive tasks in the domains of affective and psychomotor learning (Harrow, 1972; Karthwohl, 1964).

Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

Level of thinking and sample actions.

Level of thinking and Words for Outcomes

• Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001) A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing : A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Longman.
• Bloom, B. S., and Krathwohl, D. R., et al. (1956) Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals, by a committee of college and university examiners. Handbook I: Cognitive domain . NY, NY: Longmans, Green
• Harrow, A. (1972) A Taxonomy of Psychomotor Domain: A Guide for Developing Behavioral Objectives . New York: David McKay.
• Krathwohl, D. R., Bloom, B. S., & Masia, B. B. (1964) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, the Classification of Educational Goals. Handbook II: Affective Domain. New York: David McKay Co.,

Bloom et al.'s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain

Citation: Huitt, W. (2011). Bloom et al.'s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Educational Psychology Interactive . Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved [date], from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/bloom.html [ pdf ]

Return to | Overview of the Cognitive System | EdPsyc Interactive: Courses |

Beginning in 1948, a group of educators undertook the task of classifying education goals and objectives.  The intent was to develop a classification system for three domains: the cognitive, the affective, and the psychomotor.  Work on the cognitive domain was completed in the 1950s and is commonly referred to as Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain ( Bloom, Englehart , Furst , Hill,  & Krathwohl , 1956).  Others have developed taxonomies for the affective and psychomotor domains .

The major idea of the taxonomy is that what educators want students to know (encompassed in statements of educational objectives ) can be arranged in a hierarchy from less to more complex.  The levels are understood to be successive, so that one level must be mastered before the next level can be reached.

The original levels by Bloom et al. (1956) were ordered as follows:   Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation.  The taxonomy is presented below with sample verbs and a sample behavior statement for each level.

Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) revised Bloom's taxonomy to fit the more outcome-focused modern education objectives, including switching the names of the levels from nouns to active verbs, and reversing the order of the highest two levels (see Krathwohl, 2002 for an overview).  The lowest-order level (Knowledge) became Remembering , in which the student is asked to recall or remember information.   Comprehension, became Understanding, in which the student would explain or describe concepts.   Application became Applying, or using the information in some new way, such as choosing, writing, or interpreting.   Analysis was revised to become Analyzing, requiring the student to differentiate between different components or relationships, demonstrating the ability to compare and contrast.   These four levels remain the same as Bloom et al.’s (1956) original hierarchy.  In general, research over the last 40 years has confirmed these levels as a hierarchy (Anderson & Krathwohl).  In addition to revising the taxonomy, Anderson and Krathwohl added a conceptualization of knowledge dimensions within which these processing levels are used (factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognition).

The Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Iowa State University (2011) provides an excellent graphic representation on how these two taxonomies can be used together to generate lesson objectives.

The two highest, most complex levels of Synthesis and Evaluation were reversed in the revised model, and were renamed Evaluating and Creating (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001).   As the authors did not provide empirical evidence for this reversal, it is my belief that these two highest levels are essentially equal in level of complexity.   Both depend on analysis as a foundational process.  However, synthesis or creating requires rearranging the parts in a new, original way whereas evaluation or evaluating requires a comparison to a standard with a judgment as to good, better or best.  This is similar to the distinction between creative thinking and critical thinking .  Both are valuable while neither is superior.  In fact, when either is omitted during the problem solving process, effectiveness declines ( Huitt, 1992 ).

In any case it is clear that students can "know" about a topic or subject in different ways and at different levels.  While most teacher-made tests still test at the lower levels of the taxonomy, research has shown that students remember more when they have learned to handle the topic at the higher levels of the taxonomy ( Garavalia , Hummel, Wiley, & Huitt, 1999).  This is because more elaboration is required, a principle of learning based on finding from the information processing approach to learning.

Krathwohl, Bloom, and Masia (1956) also developed a taxonomy for the affective domain . In my opinion, this taxonomy is really more of a reflection of attachment or valuing rather than processing affective-related information as reflected in the cognitive taxonomy.  There are three taxonomies of the psychomotor domain that are received acceptance (Dave, 1975; Harrow, 1972; Simpson, 1972).  Clark (2010) provides an overview of these three taxonomies.

• Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives . New York: Longman.
• Bloom, B., Englehart , M. Furst , E., Hill, W., & Krathwohl , D. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive domain . New York, Toronto: Longmans, Green.
• Center for Excellen ce in Learning and Teaching (CELT). (2011). A model of learning objectives. Iowa State University. Retrieved March 2011, from http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/RevisedBlooms1.html
• Clark, D. (2010). Bloom's taxonomy of learning domains: The three types of learning. Big Dog & Little Dog's Performance Juxtaposition . Edmonds, WA: Author.  Retrieved from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html
• Dave, R. H. (1970). Psychomotor levels. In R. J. Armstrong (Ed.), Developing and writing behavioral objectives. Tucson, Arizona: Educational Innovators Press.
• Forehand, M. (2005). Bloom's taxonomy: Original and revised .. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology . Retrieved January 2009, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt
• Garavalia , L., Hummel, J., Wiley, L., & Huitt, W. (1999). Constructing the course syllabus: Faculty and student perceptions of important syllabus components. Journal of Excellence in College Teaching, 1 0 (1), 5-22. Available online at http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/papers/cons_course_syll.doc
• Harrow, A. (1972). A taxonomy of the psychomotor domain: A guide for developing behavioral objectives. New York: David McKay.
• Huitt, W. (1992). Problem solving and decision making: Consideration of individual differences using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Journal of Psychological Type, 24, 33-44. Retrieved June 2004, from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/papers/prbsmbti.html
• Krathwohl, D. (2002). A revision of Bloom's taxonomy: An overview. Theory Into Practice, 41 (4), 212-218. Retrieved from http://www.unco.edu/cetl/sir/stating_outcome/documents/Krathwohl.pdf
• Krathwohl, D., Bloom, B., & Masia, B. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives. Handbook II: Affective domain. New York: David McKay.
• Simpson E. (1972). The classification of educational objectives in the psychomotor domain. Washington, DC: Gryphon House.

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Educational Objectives As Strong Foundations of Teaching Six Levels of Cognitive Domain in Order of Complexities in Classroom Environment

13 Pages Posted: 21 Jun 2024

Paulino Faque Moisés

International Open University

Date Written: June 11, 2024

This paper delves into the pivotal role of educational objectives as sturdy cornerstones of effective teaching practices, particularly within the context of the six levels of the cognitive domain hierarchy. Educational objectives are delineated as guiding principles that outline the desired outcomes of a learning experience, providing educators and learners with a roadmap for curriculum design, instructional methods, and assessment strategies. Through a comprehensive examination of Bloom's Taxonomy, the paper explores how educational objectives shape teaching practices and student learning experiences across six levels of cognitive complexity: Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating. Drawing upon contemporary research and seminal works in education, the paper underscores the importance of aligning instructional efforts with predetermined learning objectives to establish a focused and cohesive learning environment. By synthesizing key findings from scholarly literature, this paper advocates for the integration of educational objectives into classroom instruction as a means to promote meaningful learning experiences and nurture lifelong learners equipped for success in diverse contexts.

Keywords: Educational Objectives, Teaching practices, Cognitive domain, Learning outcomes

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Paulino Faque Moisés (Contact Author)

International open university ( email ).

21 Kanifing Mosque Road P. O. Box 2340 Serrekunda Gambia +258 847037160 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://https://iou.edu.gm/

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Home Blog Inspiring Educators Examples of SMART goals and objectives or teachers and students

June 26th, 2024 by Ashlee Taylor

Examples of SMART goals and objectives or teachers and students

Table of Contents

SMART goals in education

According to leading theorists Locke and Latham , students who set specific goals perform better at school than those who do not. Teachers can enhance their pupils’ performances by incorporating goal-setting into the classroom. But that’s not the only way goals can help in education. Goal setting is also important in career development, so teachers can—and should—set goals for themselves. The SMART methodology can help teachers and students to construct robust, specific goals. Teachers can use SMART objectives and goals to improve lesson structures, support their pupils’ education, and boost their career progression. 

What are SMART goals?

SMART goals are goals with a structured framework that make them more realistic to achieve. People can use SMART goals for various purposes, including education, career growth, and personal development. SMART is an acronym which stands for the five things a goal needs to be: 

S – Specific

SMART goals should clearly define the final achievement, who is responsible for it, and what steps a person needs to take to achieve it.

For example, a specific SMART goal for a pupil could be: “I will score over 80% on the end-of-term spelling test by making flashcards for any previous mistakes and revising for one hour every week.” The student is less likely to achieve a generic goal like “I will improve my spelling” as it’s unclear how they can get there.

M – Measurable

By quantifying your goals, you can objectively measure your achievement. It’s also easier to track your progress. 

You should create a measurement framework to make a goal measurable. So, if a teacher wants to improve classroom satisfaction, they must set a benchmark. With Explain Everything digital whiteboards, teachers can invite their students to draw on the whiteboards and write a number based on how much they enjoyed or learned from a certain activity. Teachers can then take screenshots and measure the average scores over time.

A  – Attainable

Goals need to be achievable – but not too easy.

You should also consider what you can control. It’s not necessarily achievable for a child to be “the best at basketball in school,” as they cannot control the progress of their peers. However, they can set themselves goals of how often they’ll practice and how much they’ll improve their shot accuracy.

R  – Relevant

You need to understand why you’re setting a goal. 

If a teacher wants to be a subject head, they might set SMART goals around furthering their knowledge and improving professional skills. General SMART goals relating to improving efficiency are probably less relevant, unless this was the reason they were being held back from promotion. 

Some SMART methodologies use ‘Realistic’ as the ‘R’ instead. For a goal to be realistic, you need to be able to achieve it within the timeframe and with the resources available. 

T  – Time-bound

It should be clear when the goal needs to be completed. 

To ensure SMART goals are effectively implemented in education, consider using time frames such as school terms, semesters, or years.

SMART goal examples

Once you understand the SMART acronym, it’s easier to set structured goals.  Here are some examples of SMART goals for students and teachers.

SMART goal examples for students

Students may create SMART goals for studying in their own time or use them to improve their learning within lessons. They may define these goals independently or set them in collaboration with their teachers.

“I will learn my eight times table by practicing my flashcards for 10 minutes after school each day. I will use this knowledge to score 80% on the multiplication test in four weeks.”

Specific – This focuses on a specific multiplication table with a defined learning method.

Measurable – since there will be a test, the student can measure their success. They can also measure how much time they spend learning the eight times table.

Attainable – As the pupil has four weeks, 80% should be an achievable score. A teacher can advise what percentage is realistic when using test results as a measure of success.

Relevant – This goal is working towards a particular test.

Time-bound—Four weeks is enough time for the goal to be achieved, but it is not so long that the student will lose interest.

“I will read a book from my reading list four times a week for at least 30 minutes so that I can finish the books on my list by the end of term.”

Specific – “Read more” would be too vague, but reading from a defined book list keeps this goal specific.

Measurable – Reading time has been quantified.

Achievable – by breaking up the task into small amounts (30 minutes several times a week). 

Relevant – A defined reading list ensures the goal’s relevance. These could be books related to current studies.

Time-bound – This is tied to the end of the term.

SMART goal examples for teachers

SMART goals for teachers can help them develop their careers, which in turn will help their pupils.

“I will secure a permanent role within my school by completing the required training program and applying for the position at the end of the semester.”

Specific – This is focused on securing an individual role.

Measurable – The teacher can measure the pass rate of their training program.

Attainable – As the goal-setter knows a permanent role will be available, it’s realistic to attain this. While the final hiring decision is out of their control, they’re in a good position to make this goal possible.

Relevant – This goal relates to the teacher’s career path. As the training program is required for the role, the main action is relevant.

Time-bound – The teacher needs to apply for the role by the end of the semester. 

“I will increase student participation in the drama club by at least 25% by hosting one open audition per term. I will see these results by the end of the school year.”

Specific – The teacher is focusing on one extracurricular activity.

Measurable – The teacher can count the number of open auditions. Plus, they can measure the result by keeping a register of students attending the drama club.

Attainable – Aiming for a modest increase of 25% is realistic.

Relevant – If the teacher is connected to drama as a subject, this will be relevant.

Time-bound – The teacher can use the regular intervals of an open audition each term to keep themselves on target. The overall goal is also limited to a year. 

What are SMART objectives?

While some people use the terms SMART goals and SMART objectives interchangeably, goals and objectives are different things. SMART goals relate to wanting to achieve a result, while SMART objectives are the steps towards achieving that result.

You can break down our SMART goal examples to see individualized objectives. For instance, for teachers who want to increase drama club participation, their goal is to grow student numbers, but their SMART objective is to run open auditions.

SMART objective examples

SMART objectives can form part of a broader SMART goal. While all SMART goals should be specific, some will still be large (e.g., a student wanting to pass a subject or a teacher wanting a promotion). In comparison, a SMART objective focuses on an action required to reach the goal (e.g., a student attending revision classes or a teacher taking a training course).

You can also use SMART objectives independently to approach tasks in a structured way.

SMART objective examples for students

If a student has a SMART goal of getting accepted into a university by securing the necessary grades by the end of the year, they’ll need SMART objectives to help them break this down. For example:

“I will improve my results in English and score at least 75% on the exam at the end of this term by attending a revision session every week.”

Specific – This relates to one subject and its exam.

Measurable – The student can measure the number of revision sessions they attend and their exam score. 

Attainable—It’s important for the student to know what’s achievable. The student may want to work with their teacher to ensure that achieving 75% is realistic.

Relevant – The objective ties up to their overall goal of reaching university, as they need to perform well in English to secure a place.

Time-bound – As this objective leads to an exam, it is time-sensitive.

“I will become more organized in submitting assignments and avoid any late penalties by using my planner daily for the rest of the semester.”

Specific – Stating “I will become more organized” would be generic. However, this objective is specific because it’s about submitting assignments on time.

Measurable – The student can measure the number of late penalties that occur.  

Attainable – Checking a planner every day requires commitment, but it doesn’t take up much time. This is achievable and should help the student avoid missing deadlines. Explain Everything offers built-in templates for organization , including a daily planner . While this planner has been designed for teachers, students can adapt it for themselves too.

Relevant – On-time submissions will increase the student’s likelihood of getting into university. 

Time-bound – By connecting this to a semester, this is time-limited.

SMART objective examples for teachers

Teachers can also use SMART objectives.

If teachers set themselves a SMART goal related to seeking a promotion, they can also set the objectives to help them achieve this.

“I will upskill myself in people management by attending a relevant training program. I will have finished this course and received my certificate by the end of the year.”

Specific – The teacher has recognized a skill gap that could prevent them from getting promoted. 

Measurable – The teacher can measure their attendance and pass rate of the training course.  

Attainable – By attending a course, the teacher has a plan to improve people management. This makes it more achievable for them to grow this skill.

Relevant – The senior role will involve people management. Developing this skill shows proactivity, which could help them get the promotion.

Time-bound – The training course will finish at the end of the year.

“I will increase my chances of getting the promotion by practicing interview questions for at least 30 minutes a week for the rest of the term.”

Specific – The teacher knows there will be an interview and focuses on this element of the promotion process.

Measurable – The teacher can measure how long they spend practicing interview skills.

Attainable – This requires a relatively short amount of time, which is realistic in their schedule.

Relevant – Improving interview skills will help increase the teacher’s chances of successfully getting promoted. 

Time-bound – By practicing this for the rest of the term, they have a set period to work on this skill.

How to set SMART goals in the classroom

Setting SMART goals and objectives can help teachers support their students’ learnings and further develop their careers. 

With the SMART acronym, teachers can ensure that every lesson has a specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound goal. SMART objectives can form part of lesson planning, and teachers can share these with pupils at the start of each lesson. This can help keep lessons focused and encourage everyone to adopt a SMART way of thinking—for school and beyond.

Explain Everything’s digital whiteboard allows teachers to create engaging lessons and help students reach their learning goals. Explain Everything also provides online content to inspire educators and support teachers to further develop their skills.

To start your Explain Everything journey, sign up for your free account today . Once you get acclimated, upgrade to Explain Everything Advanced. The advanced plan gives you unlimited projects and an incredible amount of features.

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Learning Objectives

Ai generator.

There are plenty of ways to be better and learn more things in life. Learn to become efficient by setting learning objectives, learning goals , and long-term goals for yourself.

What Is a Learning Objective?

A learning objective is a target you set for yourself about particular abilities and information you wish to gain. The learning objective does not focus on the outcomes or results of a training program but instead places greater emphasis on the contexts , characteristics , elements , themes , and tones of the learning process.

Learning Objective Examples

Academic Subjects

• Mathematics: Students will be able to solve quadratic equations using the quadratic formula and explain each step of their solution process.
• Science: Students will be able to describe the process of photosynthesis, including the role of light, carbon dioxide, and water in the formation of glucose and oxygen.
• History: Students will be able to compare and contrast the causes and effects of World War I and World War II.

Professional Training

• Customer Service Training: By the end of this course, participants will be able to handle three types of customer complaints using the company’s standard operating procedures.
• Software Development: Participants will be able to develop a basic web application using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Healthcare: Nurses will be able to demonstrate proper sterile dressing change techniques to prevent infection.

Personal Development

• Public Speaking: By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to construct and deliver a 10-minute presentation on an unfamiliar topic using persuasive communication techniques.
• Cooking Classes: Participants will be able to prepare three different types of pasta dishes using proper culinary techniques.
• Fitness Classes: Attendees will be able to perform a 30-minute yoga routine demonstrating correct posture and breathing techniques.

Learning Objectives Examples for Students

• Understand Basic Concepts : Grasp the fundamental principles of algebra by solving linear equations and graphing simple functions.
• Improve Reading Comprehension : Analyze themes and characters in assigned literature to enhance understanding and interpretation skills.
• Develop Scientific Methods : Conduct basic experiments to understand scientific inquiry and data analysis.
• Enhance Writing Skills : Write persuasive essays that argue a clear point of view with supporting evidence.
• Master Historical Events : Identify and explain the significance of major events in world history from ancient times to the present.
• Cultivate Artistic Techniques : Experiment with different art mediums to create original works and understand artistic expressions.
• Advance Physical Fitness : Achieve proficiency in various sports and understand the principles of health and physical education.

Learning Objectives Examples for Teachers

• Facilitate Inclusive Education : Design and implement lesson plans that accommodate diverse learning styles and needs.
• Enhance Classroom Management : Develop strategies to maintain a positive and productive classroom environment.
• Implement Technology : Integrate digital tools into teaching to enhance learning outcomes and student engagement.
• Assess Student Progress : Employ various assessment techniques to measure student learning and adjust instruction accordingly.
• Promote Critical Thinking : Encourage students to think critically and solve problems through innovative teaching methods.
• Support Emotional Development : Create a supportive atmosphere that fosters students’ emotional well-being and social skills.
• Engage with Parents : Communicate effectively with parents to promote a collaborative approach to education.

Learning Objectives Examples for Internship

• Develop Professional Skills : Gain hands-on experience in industry-specific practices and protocols.
• Enhance Communication Skills : Improve both verbal and written communication skills through regular interaction with team members and management.
• Learn Project Management : Assist in planning and executing projects, understanding timelines, and resource allocation.
• Understand Organizational Culture : Acclimate to the company’s culture and contribute to team meetings and corporate events.
• Build Networking Skills : Establish professional relationships within and outside the organization.
• Receive Mentorship : Benefit from the guidance and feedback of experienced professionals in the field.
• Contribute Meaningfully : Participate in meaningful work that contributes to the company’s goals and your professional growth.

Learning Objectives Examples in Lesson Plan

• Introduce New Concepts : Introduce students to the concept of photosynthesis and its role in the ecosystem.
• Stimulate Interest : Use interactive activities to engage students and stimulate interest in environmental science.
• Develop Skills : Teach students how to use microscopes to observe plant cells.
• Assess Understanding : Use quizzes and discussions to assess students’ understanding of the material.
• Encourage Application : Encourage students to apply their knowledge by starting a class garden project.
• Promote Teamwork : Facilitate group activities that foster collaboration and communication among students.
• Reflect on Learning : Have students reflect on their learning through a class blog or journal entries.

Learning Objectives Examples for College Students

• Achieve Academic Excellence : Master core concepts in your major to prepare for advanced courses.
• Develop Research Skills : Conduct independent research projects under faculty supervision.
• Participate in Internships : Apply classroom knowledge in real-world settings through internships.
• Enhance Leadership Skills : Take leadership roles in student organizations or community projects.
• Foster Global Awareness : Participate in study abroad programs to understand global issues and cultures.
• Build Professional Networks : Attend career fairs and networking events to connect with potential employers.
• Plan for Career : Develop a career plan with actionable steps towards your professional goals.

Writing Learning Objectives Examples

• Specify Learning Goals : Clearly define what students are expected to learn by the end of the course.
• Align with Standards : Ensure objectives are aligned with national or state educational standards.
• Be Measurable : Use action verbs that allow for measurable outcomes.
• Be Concise : Keep objectives clear and concise to ensure they are understandable.
• Target Different Levels : Include objectives that target various levels of learning, from basic knowledge to critical thinking.
• Incorporate Feedback : Design objectives that include opportunities for feedback to help students improve.
• Reflect on Relevance : Make sure objectives are relevant to the students’ academic and personal growth goals.

Purpose of Learning Objectives

Guiding teaching and learning.

Learning objectives provide a clear focus for both instructors and students. They outline what students are expected to learn, which helps teachers plan their lessons and instructional activities effectively. For students, these objectives clarify the expectations and what they need to achieve by the end of a lesson or course.

Assessing Student Progress

Objectives make it easier to assess student progress and performance. By setting specific targets, educators can develop assessments that directly measure whether students have achieved the intended outcomes. This alignment helps ensure that assessments are relevant and meaningful.

Enhancing Student Motivation

When students understand the goals of their learning journey, they are more likely to be motivated. Learning objectives provide a roadmap, helping students see the purpose behind their activities and how these activities will help them achieve their educational and personal goals.

Ensuring Educational Alignment

Learning objectives help maintain alignment across the curriculum, instruction, and assessment. This alignment is crucial for ensuring that educational programs are coherent and that all components work together to support student learning effectively.

Effective Learning Objective

An effective learning subject is a clear, specific, and measurable statement that defines what students will know or be able to do as a result of a learning activity. It is designed to guide the instructional process and to assess students’ learning progress.

• Specific : It targets a precise skill or knowledge area.
• Measurable : It allows for assessment through observable outcomes.
• Attainable : It is achievable within the scope of the course or lesson.
• Relevant : It is aligned with course goals and useful for students.
• Time-bound : It includes a timeline for achievement.

Components of Learning Objectives

• Performance : Describes what the learners will be able to do, such as “Write”, “Identify”, “Solve”, “Create”.
• Condition : Specifies the conditions under which the performance should occur, like “Given a list of equations” or “Using a standard keyboard”.
• Criterion : States the standard by which the performance will be evaluated, for example, “With 95% accuracy” or “Without referring to notes”.

How to Create Personal Learning Objectives

Learning objectives can help a person succeed and achieve a sense of personal growth. To be efficient and effective, it is best if you use the SMART framework when setting your learning objectives . The SMART framework needs you to set Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Sensitive goals or learning objectives.

1.) Make the Objective Specific

Begin by making the objective as specific as possible. This is because it is difficult to quantify a very broad learning objective, due to the wide space of interpretation. The opposite is also true, which means that the more specific the goal, the easier it is to quantify.

2.) Indicate the Vectors of Measurement

You will need to indicate the vectors of measurement to help ensure that your goal is quantifiable. This means that there needs to be a physical measurement that can act as the hallmark or a sign that the goal has been achieved.

3.) Set the Requirements for Achievement

The goal needs to be achievable, which means it has a specific set of observable requirements. Not only that, but the learning objective must also be reachable in the given period or deadline. If you need to know how to list out the requirements, you may opt to use outline or outline formats for this.

4.) Ensure the Learning objective is Realistic

The learning objective needs to be realistic. This means that the learning objective or goal should be catered to the specific person. This means that not all learning objectives can be applied to other people, as it may not be realistic for them to achieve in a particular timeline.

5.) Set Up a Deadline

The deadline is the outside source of motivation for the person to achieve their learning objective. This is because the deadline brings a sense of urgency into the mix, ensuring that the person will try their best to reach their learning objective before the deadline.

How to Write Learning Objectives?

Understand the purpose.

Learning objectives are clear, concise statements that define what learners will be able to do as a result of a learning event. They help guide the instructional process and assess learning outcomes, ensuring alignment between teaching activities and learning goals.

Follow the SMART Criteria

Learning objectives should be:

• Specific : Clearly define what the learner needs to learn or be able to do.
• Measurable : Articulate outcomes that can be measured in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
• Achievable : Ensure that the objectives can realistically be accomplished given the time and resources available.
• Relevant : Align the objectives with the overall course goals and the learners’ needs.
• Time-bound : Specify when the learners should meet the objectives.

Use an Action-Oriented Format

Begin each objective with an action verb that specifies the performance required. Avoid vague terms like “understand” or “learn” as they are difficult to measure. Instead, use Bloom’s Taxonomy to choose verbs that match the level of cognitive effort expected, such as:

• Remembering : Identify, list, describe
• Understanding : Explain, summarize, classify
• Applying : Demonstrate, use, execute
• Analyzing : Compare, contrast, categorize
• Evaluating : Assess, justify, critique
• Creating : Design, construct, develop

Example Objectives

• By the end of this lesson, students will be able to calculate the area and perimeter of rectangles and triangles.
• Students will critique three examples of persuasive writing, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of each.
• By the completion of this course, participants will be able to design an original research project that addresses a defined research question.

Review and Adjust

After drafting your objectives, review them to ensure they are clear and meet the SMART criteria. It may also be helpful to get feedback from colleagues or pilot them with a small group of students to ensure they are understandable and achievable. Adjust as necessary based on this feedback.

Skills Commonly Used in Creating Career Objectives

Writing and communication skills.

Crafting effective career objectives requires strong writing skills to clearly and concisely convey your goals and aspirations. The ability to articulate your career vision and how a particular job fits into that vision is crucial. This involves selecting appropriate vocabulary, structuring sentences effectively, and tailoring the message to the intended audience, usually potential employers.

Strategic Thinking

Developing career objectives involves strategic thinking about where you want to be professionally in the short and long term. This skill helps you to align your career path with your overarching professional goals, considering your current skills, potential career opportunities, and personal aspirations.

Self-Assessment

Self-assessment skills are vital for identifying your strengths, weaknesses, interests, and values. Understanding these personal attributes allows you to create realistic and achievable career objectives that are aligned with your professional identity and personal growth goals.

Research Skills

To formulate informed career objectives, it’s important to research the industry, potential roles, and companies of interest. This research helps you understand the necessary qualifications, the industry’s direction, typical career paths, and organizational cultures, enabling you to tailor your objectives to fit real-world contexts.

Goal-Setting

Effective goal-setting is critical when defining career objectives. This involves understanding how to set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals. Proper goal-setting ensures that your career objectives are clear, achievable, and designed to propel you toward your desired career outcomes.

Learning Objectives in a Lesson Plan

Learning objectives are specific, measurable statements detailing what students are expected to learn or achieve by the end of a lesson. These objectives guide the teaching strategies and assessments used throughout the lesson.

Importance Learning Objectives in a Lesson Plan

• Focus : They provide a clear focus for both the teacher and students.
• Alignment : They help in aligning the lesson content with broader educational goals or standards.
• Assessment : They facilitate the creation of assessments that accurately measure students’ understanding.
• Motivation : They can motivate students by clearly defining the learning targets.

Characteristics of Effective Learning Objectives

• Specific : Clearly defines what students will learn.
• Measurable : Includes criteria that can be observed or measured.
• Achievable : Attainable for students within the lesson or class period.
• Relevant : Directly related to the course content and student needs.
• Time-bound : Achievable within the time allocated for the lesson.

Examples of Learning Objectives in a Lesson Plan

Here are a few examples of learning objectives for different subjects:

• Math : Students will be able to solve quadratic equations using the quadratic formula with 90% accuracy.
• History : Students will identify and describe the causes and effects of the American Revolution.
• Science : Students will demonstrate understanding of the water cycle by labeling all stages on a diagram.
• English : Students will write a five-paragraph essay that argues their position on a given topic, using proper grammar and punctuation.

What are Student Learning Objectives?

Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) are detailed, measurable goals used to assess the progress of students towards mastering specific skills or knowledge over a course or a year. SLOs are typically set by teachers at the beginning of the academic period and are used to track student progress, inform instructional strategies, and adjust teaching methods to meet the needs of students. These objectives are crucial in educational planning and are often aligned with standards and benchmarks to ensure they are objective and actionable.

Benefits of Learning Objectives

Clarity and direction.

Learning objectives provide clear, concise statements about what learners are expected to achieve by the end of a lesson or course. They help both instructors and students by outlining the specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes that should be developed. This clarity guides instructional planning and gives students a clear understanding of expectations, helping them focus their efforts more effectively.

Improved Teaching and Learning

With well-defined objectives, instructors can design their teaching strategies and materials to directly support targeted outcomes. This alignment enhances the effectiveness of teaching and can lead to more consistent and meaningful learning experiences for students. Learners benefit by understanding precisely what they need to learn, which can increase their motivation and engagement.

Assessment and Evaluation

Learning objectives are crucial for designing assessments that accurately measure student learning. They ensure that evaluations are aligned with the intended outcomes of the course, providing a direct link between what is taught and what is assessed. This alignment helps in fairly evaluating student performance and also in identifying areas where students may need additional support.

Progress Tracking and Feedback

Clear objectives allow both teachers and students to track progress throughout the course. Instructors can use them to provide targeted feedback, helping students understand where they are excelling and where they need improvement. This ongoing feedback loop can significantly enhance student learning and achievement.

Professional Development

For educators, the process of creating and refining learning theories is a valuable professional development tool. It encourages reflection on teaching practices and student outcomes, leading to continual improvement in instructional design and delivery. This iterative process helps teachers become more effective educators over time.

Steps to Implement Learning Objectives

• Define Clear Objectives : Begin by clearly defining what you want learners to achieve. Use action verbs that can be observed and measured, such as “describe,” “solve,” “analyze,” or “create.”
• Align Activities and Materials : Ensure that every learning activity, instructional material, and resource aligns with your objectives. This alignment keeps the course focused and maximizes educational efficiency.
• Communicate Expectations to Learners : Clearly communicate the objectives to your students at the beginning of the course or lesson. This helps set their expectations and focus their learning efforts.
• Use Objectives to Guide Assessments : Design assessments (quizzes, tests, projects, etc.) that directly measure the achievement of the learning objectives. This can include both formative assessments (to monitor learning progress) and summative assessments (to evaluate learning at the end of a course segment).
• Adjust Based on Feedback : Gather feedback from learners about their understanding and engagement. Use this data to adjust your instructional approaches and improve the learning experience.
• Review and Revise Objectives : Regularly review and update learning objectives based on curriculum changes, feedback, or shifts in educational standards.

What is Bloom’s Taxonomy?

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a framework developed by educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom in 1956, used to classify educational learning objectives into levels of complexity and specificity. The taxonomy aims to encourage higher forms of thinking in education, such as analyzing and evaluating concepts, rather than just remembering facts. It is widely used to guide the development of assessments, curriculum, and instructional methods.

The Three Domains of Bloom’s Taxonomy

• Cognitive : This domain involves knowledge and the development of intellectual skills. It includes six categories which were later revised to be more action-oriented: Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating.
• Affective : This domain describes the way people react emotionally and their ability to feel another living thing’s pain or joy. It ranges from the simplest awareness to the more complex forms of internalization or commitment.
• Psychomotor : This domain focuses on manual or physical skills. It includes actions which are measured in terms of precision, control, efficiency, and execution.

The Levels of the Cognitive Domain

• Remembering : Recognizing or recalling facts, terms, basic concepts, or answers.
• Understanding : Demonstrating understanding of facts and ideas by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and stating main ideas.
• Applying : Using new knowledge to solve problems in new situations by applying acquired knowledge, facts, techniques, and rules.
• Analyzing : Examining and breaking information into parts by identifying motives or causes; making inferences and finding evidence to support generalizations.
• Evaluating : Presenting and defending opinions by making judgments about information, validity of ideas, or quality of work based on a set of criteria.
• Creating : Combining elements to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements to form a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing.

Relationship between Bloom’s Taxonomy and Learning Objectives

Bloom’s Taxonomy directly influences the formulation of learning objectives by providing a structured framework to craft clear, measurable, and achievable goals at different levels of learning complexity. It helps educators design objectives that not only cover basic knowledge acquisition (remembering and understanding) but also encourage higher-order thinking skills such as applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. By using this taxonomy, educators can ensure that learning objectives are diversified across cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains, thereby catering to comprehensive skill development and deeper learning experiences for students. This methodical approach allows for targeted teaching strategies and assessments that align with desired educational outcomes, making learning both effective and efficient.

1. Learning Objectives Examples

2. Basic Guide to Learning Objectives

3. Writing Smart Learning Objectives

4. Writing Learning Objectives for Internships

5. Sample Learning Objectives

Why are learning objectives important?

Learning objectives guide instruction, provide clear expectations, and help measure student progress, ensuring effective teaching and learning.

How do you write effective learning objectives?

Write clear, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound objectives using action verbs that define student outcomes.

What are some examples of learning objectives?

Examples include: “Students will be able to analyze historical events” or “Students will demonstrate proficiency in algebraic equations.”

How do learning objectives differ from learning goals?

Learning objectives are specific, measurable outcomes, while learning goals are broader, general aspirations for student learning.

Can learning objectives be changed during a course?

Yes, learning objectives can be adjusted based on student needs, progress, and feedback to ensure effective learning.

How do you assess learning objectives?

Assess learning objectives through quizzes, exams, projects, presentations, and other measurable assessments aligned with the objectives.

What is the role of learning objectives in curriculum design?

Learning objectives shape curriculum design by defining the content, activities, and assessments necessary to achieve desired student outcomes.

How do learning objectives benefit students?

Learning objectives provide students with clear expectations, focus their learning efforts, and help track their progress and achievements.

What are Bloom’s Taxonomy and its relevance to learning objectives?

Bloom’s Taxonomy categorizes learning objectives into cognitive levels, guiding educators in creating objectives that foster higher-order thinking skills.

Text prompt

• Instructive
• Professional

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