Educational Psychology

10. Planning instruction

Such a sequence does not work well, however, for all possible topics or subjects. To learn certain topics in
mathematics, for example, students may sometimes need to start with general ideas (like “What does it mean to
multiply?”) than with specific facts (like “How much is 4 x 6?”) (Egan, 2005). At other times, though, the reverse
sequence may be preferable. Whatever the case, a taxonomy of cognitive objectives, like Bloom’s, can help to
remind teachers to set a variety of objectives and to avoid relying excessively on just one level, such as simple recall
of factual knowledge (Notar, et al., 2004).

Bloom’s Taxonomy revised

A few years ago two of Benjamin Bloom’s original colleagues, Linda Anderson and David Krathwohl, revised his
taxonomy so as to clarify its terms and to make it more complete (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001; Marzano, 2006).
The resulting categories are summarized and compared to the original categories in Table 32. As the chart shows,
several categories of objectives have been renamed and a second dimension added that describes the kind of
thinking or cognitive processing that may occur. The result is a much richer taxonomy than before, since every level
of the objectives can now take four different forms. Remembering, for example, can refer to four different kinds of
memory: memory for facts, for concepts, for procedures, or for metacognitive knowledge. Table 32 gives examples
of each of these kinds of memory.

Table 32: Bloom’s Taxonomy of cognitive objectives—revised

Original term from

Bloom’s Taxonomy

(1956)

Revised term

emphasizing cognitive

processing (2001)

A new dimension

added: types of

knowledge learned

(2001)

Example of

cognitive process

remembering

combined with

possible types of

knowledge

Knowledge Remembering

Comprehension Understanding

Application Applying

Analysis Analyzing

Evaluation Evaluating

Synthesis Creating

• factual knowledge


• conceptual
  knowledge


• procedural
  knowledge


• metacognitive
  knowledge

Memory for facts:

recalling the names of

each part of a living cell

Memory for concepts:

recalling the functions of

each part of a living cell

Memory for

procedures: recalling

how to view a cell under a

microscope

Memory for

metacognition: recalling

not the names of the parts,

but a technique for

remembering the names of

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