The Timeless Aura of Bloom’s Taxonomy

If the field of Instructional Design were Hollywood, Bloom’s Taxonomy would be its Julia Roberts (and ARCS its Tom Cruise).

In 1956 (almost seventy years ago), Dr. Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues proposed the three learning domains: The cognitive domain, the affective domain, and the psychomotor domain. In brief, the cognitive domain relates to thinking, the affective domain to feelings, and the psychomotor domain to our motor skills. Bloom’s taxonomy divides the cognitive learning process into six levels. You might already know them by heart, but for the occasional non-instructional designer who arrives on this page, here they are in both their avatars.

Whether you want to use the original Bloom’s Taxonomy or the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (proposed by Dr. David Krathwohl in 2001 and endorsed by Dr. Benjamin Bloom) is entirely up to you. I prefer to use BT for clarity and because I disagree with the placement of Evaluate in the new taxonomy. The manner in which you use the taxonomy for content creation, however, remains unchanged. My book, For the Love of Instructional Design, devotes several pages to Bloom’s taxonomy and its role in making content effective.

The following are the levels of the two versions in parallel.

And here’s a visual for the visual learners among my readers 🙂

You can read the Instructional Design Junction post on this matter here.

The Reasons behind Bloom’s Taxonomy’s Continued Importance

If you are a practicing instructional designer, you may have already developed the mental habit of classifying learning as Bloom’s Levels (BLs). If you are an interviewer, you probably ask questions on ADDIE, ARCS, and BT (and in the case of BT, expect the interviewee to recite and explain the levels per the RBT). If you are preparing for an interview, you might be revising the levels in both versions. Let us face it, Bloom’s Taxonomy is one of the most important instructional design concepts that the twentieth century theorists have endowed us with.

But why is BT so important? Why this aura…this halo?

Following are three important reasons that may have contributed to BT’s fame.

1. BT applies not only to the adult learner (andragogy) but also to the child learner (pedagogy). This means that BT’s scope is much bigger than that of several other concepts. (Note: The term “pedagogy” is loosely used to refer to the study of learning methods in general.)
2. BT applies to cognitive domain learning, and since learning in all three domains begins in the cognitive domain, it expands the scope of BT’s application.
3. Qualitatively speaking, BT enables us by a clear classification of levels, thus helping us move from simple to complex within and across learning interventions. Thus, it becomes an important tool in building the learner’s schema for subsequent new learning. (Read about Merrill’s First Principles here.)

If you are a fresh instructional designer, you must quickly become proficient with the levels in both BT and RBT. A tongue-in-cheek reminder: As an ID you must know the levels of BT and RBT at BL1 (Knowledge Level/Remember), BL2 (Comprehension Level/Understand), and, if possible, BL3 (Application Level/Apply).

How does the knowledge of Bloom’s Taxonomy help us create better content with AI?

When you rush to the AI of your choice and ask it to build a list of objectives for you, you must be able to see how the performance verbs in the AI-generated list of objectives measure up against their required BLs, and whether there’s a gap in the list. In almost all AI-generated macro-designs that I’ve seen so far, the objectives appear weak and the list of objectives looks incomplete (doesn’t ensure that the learning goal is met.) Ensuring that the objectives address the right Bloom’s level is an important skill for instructional designers, but BT can help you achieve a lot more.

Another instance where BT comes handy in improving the learning effectiveness of AI-generated content is when you use AI to generate questions for your courses. A strong understanding of Bloom’s Taxonomy can help you determine if the questions address the objectives of the course at their required levels.

And remember that of the several uses that you can put BT to, these are just two of them. The 10-week-long journey of the IDCDT-AIM course takes several scenic learning detours through the different application areas of instructional design, including AI-assisted content creation.

As we step into the shoes of AI’s guides and collaborators and start evaluating AI content, Bloom’s Taxonomy becomes our trusted partner in our quest for learning effectiveness.

Image Credits:

• Dr. Bloom’s Portrait sketched by Shafali R. Anand
• BT & RBT Diagram by SRA using PowerPoint
• ID Holmes by Google’s Gemini