Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom's taxonomy arranged in a pyramid. From the bottom: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating at the top.
Figure 2. Bloom's Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy organizes learning outcomes (action verbs) into levels according to their cognitive complexity. Figure 2 shows the six levels in the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy:

  1. At the remembering level, participants can remember or recall previously learned information.
  2. At the understanding level, participants can demonstrate their understanding by explaining ideas or concepts.
  3. At the applying level, participants can use the new information in another familiar situation.
  4. At the analyzing level, participants can break information into parts to see how the parts relate to one another and to the overall conceptual structure.
  5. At the evaluating level, participants can make judgements using criteria and standards and can justify a decision or course or action.
  6. At the highest level, participants can create new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things by reorganizing information into new patterns or structures.

Use Bloom’s Taxonomy to see how lower-level thinking skills are used to support higher-level skills later in the course. Bloom’s Taxonomy can be used as a guide to selecting appropriate instructional strategies and aligning the questions and activities with the learning outcomes.