Teaching students to think: practical applications of Bloom's Taxonomy

摘要

Bloom's Taxonomy is a staple of teacher education. We've all been familiarized with Bloom's knowledge, comprehension, application, synthesis, analysis, and evaluation levels. Bloom challenged educators, through this hierarchical classification system to, "think about the objectives they write, the questions they ask, and the test items they construct" (Eggen & Kauchak, 1994). Given the rapid advances in technology and information access, an abundance of educational literature (Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS), 1991; National Research Council (NRC), 1996; and Goals 2000) has been produced charging educators with the tasks of providing a workforce of individuals with adequate analytical, problem solving, and critical thinking skills. While we may not review every objective, classroom activity, or test question and cross-reference it with Bloom's Taxonomy, we are certainly mindful that teaching and learning should extend beyond the knowledge level, challenging our students to think and solve problems in real-world applications.