Bloom's Taxonomy

This is a demonstration of the eCOVE Observation Software tool for tracking the level of questions asked by teachers or answered by students according to revised Bloom's Taxonomy. This is one of many tools in the eCOVE Software. 

There is more than one type of learning. A committee of colleges, led by Benjamin Bloom (1956), identified three domains of educational activities:

• Cognitive: mental skills (Knowledge)
• Affective: growth in feelings or emotional areas (Attitude)
• Psychomotor: manual or physical skills (Skills)

Since the work was produced by higher education, the words tend to be a little bigger than we normally use. Domains can be thought of as categories. Trainers often refer to these three categories as KSA (Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude). This taxonomy of learning behaviors can be thought of as “the goals of the learning process.” That is, after a learning episode, the learner should have acquired new skills, knowledge, and/or attitudes.

The committee also produced an elaborate compilation for the cognitive and affective domains, but none for the psychomotor domain. Their explanation for this oversight was that they have little experience in teaching manual skills within the college level (I guess they never thought to check with their sports or drama departments).

This compilation divides the three domains into subdivisions, starting from the simplest behavior to the most complex. The divisions outlined are not absolutes and there are other systems or hierarchies that have been devised in the educational and training world. However, Bloom's taxonomy is easily understood and is probably the most widely applied one in use today.