Bloom's Taxonomy for Online Learning: A Crash Course (+Template)

Bloom's Taxonomy is a well-established teaching framework to help teachers effectively meet the needs of their students . However, do entrepreneurs and course creators use the same framework to develop their business? Yes, we think so.

When you were in school, where did you thrive in terms or numbers? Were Maths as well as Science your most favored subjects or did you long to attend English class?

Have you stopped to consider how you reached that point? It was when you learned to count and after which you learned to add and that led you into Physics along with Calculus. The first grade you entered wasn't 1 with a volume of Shakespeare under your arm and someone was there to teach you about the alphabet and the way they are incorporated to form the words that appear that appear on the pages of your favorite novel.

Brains develop incrementally, layering concept upon concept with growing levels of complexity. From the beginning of kindergarten until the halls of the Ivy League, Educators rely on building-block principles to disseminate knowledge. They depend on pedagogical strategies that are theories and methods of teaching to impart concepts to their pupils.

In addition to the class, understanding how students learn is a great way to aid course designers in creating better course. Armed with a solid understanding of how the brain develops knowledge you can strategically build courses that will more effectively deliver solutions to your students. They will be able to keep coming back to you for more and will encourage them to suggest the course to friends and will help your business to grow.

What is Bloom's Taxonomy?

Benjamin Bloom originally published his taxonomy in 1956. He designed this pedagogical approach to assess the development of cognitive abilities of his students. Through the creation of a hierarchy to measure a student's degree of understanding, Bloom created a way to answer the question that each educator asks: are my lessons working?

Bloom's theory was straightforward: If you are unable to recall a notion, then you don't understand the idea; or if you can not comprehend something, you are unable to apply the idea. It is impossible to distinguish between right and incorrect answers and debate their benefits or drawbacks. Any understanding or argument's depth cannot be achieved without first setting the fundamentals of understanding and remembering.

In that light, he created an enumeration of cognition that which was divided into six stages and assigned each stage a noun to describe the ability or degree of cognitive ability a person must attain before moving to the next stage.

The continuum is usually shown as a pyramid, to show the different degrees of dependence upon each other:

• a student cannot apply before they understand,
• They aren't able to evaluate until they learn to analyze.

Bloom described this method as scaffolding. The analogy is powerful: as construction workers build tall buildings then they build scaffolding to support their workspace starting from the bottom up. Similar to this, each level of the taxonomy is built on the foundation prior to the one before. If there are cracks in the foundation - the cognitive ability was not utilized or was not properly reinforced - the following level may find itself on shaky ground.

It is not the case that every student will begin from the bottom and work their way upwards. A few students may have established certain abilities, which allows them to start between the two and start climbing up from there.

What is the significance of the six levels in Bloom's Taxonomy?

Each level of Bloom's Taxonomy comes with a series of words that define the actions a student must be able to perform by that stage. When a person is able to master the verbs at one level, they move on to the next level, and then ahead.

The levels also include learning objectivesthat are very useful when considering what you can do with them in the outline of your course. As the modules of your course progress it is possible to use higher and more advanced learning objectives as you can expect greater degrees of knowledge from your students.

We've also included applications for course creators and educators in a digital classroom. If you're looking for activities to practice as well as assessments that can help you create different lesson plans and different levels of your course outline, this list of resources is a great place to start.

Stage 1.  Recall

Remembering is simple: this is the most basic way to retain of new facts. This is a game of memory, and there's a reason that's the lowest point on this ladder - it's the easiest, the fundamental foundational element in learning as well as the most important as nothing else is able to be done until you retain a substantial amount of facts in your working memory.

The students who have reached the level of this should be able to recall information, or define important phrases. They can write an outline of the most important concepts, or label a diagram, and they understand enough about the subject matter that they know which search words to enter into Google to find additional details.

Test it: test:

• Take students on an online Scavenger hunt. Ask them to curate an index of bookmarks or favorites of sites relevant to the topic, or search for Facebook pages and other social media accounts where this topic is featured. They can contribute their findings to a resource list that they can share with peers.

Stage 2: Understand

At this level of Bloom's Taxonomy, students have progressed beyond just remembering and they demonstrate a contextual knowledge of the knowledge.

This is evident in their ability to explain information to others; they can paraphrase or summarize blogs, news articles or other sources of data accurately. They are also able to perform more complex internet searches today - employing Boolean terms and digging into journals of academic research - and make use of their knowledge to accurately identify and label various online resources that support the topic.

Try it out to the test:

• Make a thread for the subject in your Facebook page or on a community site as well as assigning students the task of contributing meaningfully to the group discussion. By explaining and discussing the issue together, students are able to improve their knowledge and aid one another to move to the next level.
• Students should create a blog article, record a vlog, publish a status on social media and then live-stream on social to explain this concept simply and concisely to others. It doesn't matter if students live stream the event or create the content, and then submit private to the class It's all about creating content that has a clear description.
• Give students an article or blog post to readand then have them write annotated notes on the article with notes to explain how it relates to the subject.

3.  3: Apply

Students who are at this point have acquired the ability to take knowledge and apply it in different scenarios.

It is possible that they can use their newly acquired expertise to resolve a challenge. If they are faced with a possible blockage, they may use their information to plan simple solutions. It is possible practice their abilities with a simple work or project. At this stage, these projects are akin to fill-in-the-blank exercises, where students receive a fundamental framework and they have to use their understanding to create the larger picture. But they're beginning to develop their knowledge of the subject matter and they're well on their way to being capable of using these abilities with a greater abstraction.

Try it out to the test:

• Students with fundamental problems and ask students to develop solutions based on the topic.
• Provide students with a sketch or piece of writing without some words in it, then ask them to write in the missing words using the correct terms
• Students already know how to explain this concept; Now ask them to come up with a possible homework or practice task that they could give to someone in order to test their understanding.

Stage 4  4. Analyze

As we move through the Bloom's Taxonomy Students can dissect information into small pieces to investigate relationships between complex ideas. This also represents the point at which students make their own judgement decisions about their subject. They will be able to assess information as well as compare and contrast ideas, and find proof to back their claims.

Test it: test:

• Give students a jumbled information or a list of words then ask them to classify the data. You can assign it a rank according to importance, split into groups, or make compare/contrast lists with the explanations.
• Students are asked to make an outline of the pros and cons, based upon their comprehension of the topic and how to apply it to a particular challenge or issue.
• Students are given an open-ended thesis , and ask them to state the reasoning behind it or provide a solution. This is the most important thing: the students must present evidence in support of their decision, and demonstrate that they are able to evaluate the subject critically.

Stage 5  5: Assess

The stage at this point is when students reach the ability to be more independent regarding the subject. They not only know how to communicate, use the information they've been given to them, but they also have the ability to use what they've learnt and rearrange the pieces into new ideas which can be evaluated, debated, and measured.

At this point, you can expect students to be able to effectively engage in debate over a thesis question. Students can develop fresh ideas or ideas as well as design and develop tests to gauge their efficacy. The students at this stage are so well-informed of the subject matter, that they should be able draw upon it on the spot to have spontaneous conversations and tackle ad-hoc challenges.

Test it: test:

• Students should be divided into groups, and have them debate on a thesis that was chosen by you.
• Students should develop a comprehensive project in order to resolve a specific problem. They could even produce an online slide deck or other type of content to showcase their work.
• Students are asked to contribute to the discussion thread within your group or on a community site; part of the task for the group is to comment actively on the discussion, and then moderate it as well as critically examine any information posted in comments.
• Present students with a problem, and ask them to design an assessment to determine the difficulty or resolve it. Students can present their solutions in a group environment similar to presenting on a whiteboard. They will be able to explain arguments, defend, and justify their ideas will be a determining factor in the level of understanding of the topic.

6. Stage : Design

It's over - the training wheels are off, the cord has been cut, and your work there is complete. You've taught your students so well that they can take this knowledge in a multitude of different situations. They can also develop brand-new resources that inspire and delight other students. They've climbed to the top on the Bloom's Taxonomy scaffold and they're eager to grow and succeed independently. Are you proud? It's a good thing!

Put it to the test:

• Ask students to produce a video or blog post where they use a creative method of their choice to present the subject in a compelling way
• Put students in groups to plan and record a series of podcast episodes on the topic. They can work as group to determine what subjects should be included during the podcast series. every episode could build upon the one before.
• Students should make, edit, or contribute to a wiki on the topic.

How to apply Bloom's Taxonomy

Know the students you teach. What types of questions do your students engage with? What activities and projects will they be responding to? Are they motivated enough to take part in classroom discussions?

Early in a lesson unit begin by asking questions from a number of Bloom's Taxonomy levels to ascertain a baseline of knowledge for your students. Pay attention to their answers and level of engagement - students will engage less when you move up the levels they are unfamiliar with. This will show the depth of their understanding. You can now develop a strategy to help them climb to the upper levels.

Find out the goals for cognitive development of the course. Are you aiming for students to get an overview? Revision of previous concepts? Is there a skill they're required to master or an academic level they need to attain? Not all Bloom's taxonomies are made equal. The application of each level will differ in relation to the topic you're studying and the degree of knowledge you're aiming for.

Plan an assessment plan which helps students go across the various levels of your course taxonomy. After you've decided on which direction you'd like to take with, you'll be able to plan the stops along your route with Bloom's Taxonomy to help you ensure you have covered every aspect.

Within a single lesson begin by moving from lower order to higher order thinking questions. This level of inquiry are a part of the lesson planning, and they can be scattered strategically throughout the lesson. You can start to lower-order ones at the start of the class, and ending with higher-order questions closer to the end of the lesson. In this way, you'll be able to verify that students are up with the content, and you have the opportunity to address the obstacles that hinder them or support students who are struggling before moving to the next step.

Results of learning for the online course's success

Now that you have the pedagogical tools you need to succeed You're now able to design a curriculum outline which is a powerful one. There's no difference if you're teaching someone how perform a piano, or start a business of your own Our brains are wired the same way, along the same lines regardless of subject matter. The ability to harness this is crucial to creating a course that delivers - and keeping your students coming back to learn further.

      The article was originally published September 2020, and it was revised in March 2023 , making it much more helpful.