Bloom's Taxonomy: Affective Theory

BLOOM'S AFFECTIVE THEORY
Surprisingly, the educational community gives little emphasis on the two other areas of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Even with the recent scientific knowledge about the amygdale, emotional intelligence and intuitive knowledge, Bloom’s Affective theory is almost entirely neglected. Similarly, his research on the psychomotor realm of learning remains largely ignored by the academic community.
Perhaps this is because other theorists have built upon Bloom’s work. (Which, in all honesty, was led by an entire team of researchers.) Bloom’s protégé R.H. Dave has gained notoriety for his contribution to psychomotor behavioral objectives.

Affective Domain

Receiving– A student will be able to receive a stimulus. On an emotional scale, this means that a student must be wiling to learn and to pay attention. On a more observable scale, this means that a student should be paying attention, listening and on-task. At this stage, a student is attentive, but not necessarily actively engaged. Example: A student sits passively in a classroom

Responding – At this point, a student will be actively engaged, but not necessarily internalizing any information. The student is not only willing to engage (receiving) but is actually engaging in the information. Here the student feels enough involved in the classroom community that he or she feels safe sharing information. Example: A student raises his hand in a class discussion

Valuing – The student believes that the subject and the people are important. Rather than merely being a participant, the student desires to be there and feels a sense of importance and meaning in what is being accomplished. A student at this stage does not feel outside pressure to comply, but an internal compulsion to participate and contribute. Example: A student wants to be in class and volunteers to lead a group.

Organizing – Here is when a student attempts to fit the idea, class or activity into a greater philosophical framework. There is a notion of compromise and harmony involved. It is not unlike Bloom’s notion of synthesis. This is also where a student clarifies values into priorities. Example: A student sees connection between life and the class. The student leads a petition because of skills learned in a government class.

Internalizing – The learning, ideas or community has become a part of the student. This is also where a student has the greatest sense of self-control and a strongest sense of a personal philosophy that guides him or her. Example: The learning is now a part of the student’s core values. A student creates a life philosophy based on what he or she knows.

This has been presented as a hierarchy, but the reality is that it is more like a continuum. Students fall back and forth between the two rather than climb to the top. For example, a new situation might cause a student to fall back to receiving. A student might be in valuing until trust has been broken and it goes back to responding or receiving.

Bloom's Taxonomy: Psychomotor

BLOOM'S PSYCHOMOTOR THEORY

For this one, we’ll use an example of learning how to drive a car. A rough definition of pyschomotor would be the knowledge requried to do a task. It is not far off of the notion of kinesthetic learning.

It takes years of cruising to have the speed and finesse of this young whipper snapper!

Imitation – Seeing an activity and repeating what is seenObservable: Person can see it and do it
Example: Practices driving the car and drives at a slow pace in parking lots.

Manipulation – Practicing it becomes more habitual Observable: Should be able to step away from it for awhile without seeing it demonstrated again. Example: Practices driving the car in parking lots and out in neighborhoods. By now, the driver doesn’t have all skills, but the early act of driving is now habitual.

Precision – Accurately able to do a skill, seems “easy” and normalObservable: Should be doing it without looking too upsetExample: Almost effortlessly, the driver can maneuver around the road. However, there is still some tension and still some contexts where the driver is a novice.

Articulation – Able to do skill and modify it easily in order to change results Observable: Makes slight changes without losing sight of the skillExample: The driver can use all the skills and adjust to new contexts. The driver can handle the rain, the snow and the crazy Phoenix dust storms.

Naturalization – Able to do it thoughtlessly Observable: It is easy and effortless. For example, an athlete might just seem “in the zone.” Example: Someone who has been driving twenty years and knows all terrains

Bloom's Taxonomy: Criticisms

Criticisms of Bloom's Taxonomy
Educational theorists have criticized Bloom’s Taxonomy on a few grounds.

1. Learning is not sequential – Bloom’s Hierarchy seems too artificially constructed. It is a very linear, straightforward view of how humans comprehend information. Although each concept or classification has its place, researchers are beginning to see the mind as more of a web. A person might skip from knowledge to application then analyze the application, come to a conclusion (evaluation) and then re-analyze the conclusion all working toward a greater synthesis of information. Constructivist teaching has suggested that teachers need to spread higher-order thinking skills throughout a task rather than begin with the imparting of knowledge.
2. It is incomplete – Bloom concentrated his efforts on learning, yet there is little about motivation or about classroom management.
3. It is too precise – Classifying and separating learning into three spheres and nice hierarchies is a very modern, scientific view of learning. Yet, a postmodern critique would attempt to deconstruct this idea. For one, they would suggest that brain science is still in its earliest formation and that we do not entirely understand the mystery of the mind. In addition, postmodernists would suggest that many of the terms are simply artificial constructs used as ideology to conceal the messy side of learning.
4. It is individualistic – Unlike the Social Learning Theory, Bloom’s Taxonomy focuses heavily on how an individual learns. It misses what occurs when there are social forces. For example, an individual’s ability to reach “evaluation” can easily be clouded by “groupthink.”

Responses to Criticism
Critics make valid points. However, they need to keep a few things in mind. First, Bloom saw his work as scientific and therefore contributed to the larger, democratic pool of scientific reserach. If his theories were incomplete, this is because he saw them as always changing and he validated many outside theories. In addition, his taxonomy focuses on learning and assessment more than on how to teach. When critics take the time to read his work, they realize it was much broader than first assumed. In terms of being too precise and too individualistic, that is understandable. He lived during a period of rugged American individualism. He was a modern man, which meant that he took individualism, science and objective knowledge for granted.

Bloom's Taxonomy: Cognitive Theory

KnowledgeWhat happens? This is the rote memorization, basic recall of information. Here a student learns some information (or recalls from prior knowledge) and can restate it exactly.
Synonyms (for Objectives): Recall, Identify, Examine, Define, List, Tell, Describe, Label, Match
Questions: Any question that has a yes/no, objective answer Example:
Who won the war of 1812?
What causes photosyntheis?
Is this a right triangle?
Activities: lecture, note-taking, textbook reading, filling out a graphic organizer ComprehensionWhat happens? The mind is able to take the information and summarize it. Thus, rather than simply being able to identify the definition of racism, a student could explain what racism is. This is the point where a student can transfer knowledge from one context to another.
Synonyms (for Objectives): Summarize, Interpret, Discuss, Explain, Estimate, Generalize
Questions: Questions which require the summary of information. Example:
What is another example of __________?
Can you put that in your own words?
Roughly speaking, what is ___________?
Who do you think ____________?
What was the main idea of ______________?
Activities: Write a summary, join a discussion, state in your own words, generate a group definition ApplicationWhat happens? A student at this point is able to take what has been learned and use it in another context. There is a greater sense of action here.
Synonyms (for Objectives): Demonstrate, Use, Solve
Questions- Example:
Given a case study, what would be the best _____?
Given an example, what would you ___________?
How would this apply to ______________?
What would have happened if _____________?
If you were in that situation, what would you have done?
Activities: service learning project, interactive activity, lab, critical thinking questions, case studiesAnalysis What happens? This is where a the mind separates out different ideas and “picks them apart.” Many people confuse this with synthesis, but analysis is not creating an organization, but rather using organization to separate out some other knowledge.
Synonyms (for Objectives): Differentiate, Categorize, Organize, Order, Classify, Arrange, Infer Compare, Contrast, Discriminate
Questions - Example:
What is the difference between _____________?
How is this different from _____________?
Which category would this fit best in?
How are these similar?
How could this be modified to be like that?
Activities: deconstruction paper, categorizing experiences, concept maps, Venn Diagram, SynthesisWhat happens? This is where the mind works like a web. Ideas connect and combine to create a new, coherent whole . This is also the creative, more intuitive aspect of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Here the mind works as a creative force to generate something new and different based on prior knowledge. Synonyms (for Objectives): Create, Generate, Combine, Integrate, Compose, Formulate, Plan, Design, Invent
Questions - Example:
What would happen if __________?
What would be the best solution for __________?
What would be a compromise for _______________
Activities: poster, play, poem, video, website, mural – anything that involves the creation of something newEvaluationWhat happens? The mind judges whether something is true, valid or accurate. There can even be a moral component to this. Synonyms (for Objectives): Judge, Defend, Rate, Predict, Assess, Test, DefendQuestions - Example:
What is the best?
What is the worst aspect of ______?
What is the top _________?
Why is this _________?
What do you believe about __________?
Activities: Socratic Seminar, debate, discussion,
Modifications of the Theory
Others have attempted to modify Bloom’s Taxonomy. The most common revision changes the terminology slightly, from adjectives to verbs. The idea is that, in learning, humans are doing rather than being. The mind is active at work. Personally, I doubt that people really needed to see “apply” instead of “application.” Besides, in describing levels of thinking, it is perfectly reasonable to use adjectives. More recently, data-driven theorist Marzano created a revision that changed the knowledge category, skipped application and split synthesis into generating and integrating. Marzano’s terminology was:

focusing
information gathering
remembering
organizing
analyzing
generating
integrating
evaluating

Although Marzano’s theory was a genuine revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy, The benefit of this initital theory was that it viewed knowledge as an earlier process of investigation. Teachers have seen how a student failing to “focus” or “information gather” will struggle through the higher levels. The failture of his theory was that it left out application and viewed learning as too traditional. It assumed that prior knowledge was not a part of learning. Also, as Critical Pedagogy would point out, there is little application and action. In the end, the final revision read: knowledge, organizing, applying , analyzing, generating, integrating, and evaluating. Thus, it was basically the same as Bloom’s Taxonomy; which attests to the durability of Bloom’s theories

Bloom's Taxonomy: Biography of Bloom

BLOOM'S BIOGRAPHY
Benjamin S. Bloom was born into the tumultuous time period of World War I. Yet, his early life was shaped in many ways by the typical Eastern American experience. Born on Februray 21, 1913, Bloom grew up in Lansford Pennsylvania. He was a small and unassuming man with a sharp wit and a deep desire to learn.

He attended Penn State University and later earned a PhD from the University of Chicago. At the time he developed his famous taxonomy, the United States was at the forefront of educational theory. From John Dewey’s Progressive school to the boom in Information Processing Theory to Skinner’s science of Behaviorism, the U.S. paved the way in educational theory. As a Board Examiner from 1943 to 1959, Bloom developed his famous Bloom’s Taxonomy. Unlike other theorists, his grew out of a pragmatic need to re-tool the assessment of students. Indeed, Benjamin Bloom was one of the first theorists to advocate the absolution of norm-referenced tests.

To him, all learning must be individualized and criterion-referenced. Eventually, on their own, students would reach the same level. Bloom had an affinity for science and statistics, which enabled him to classify information quickly. Those who knew him would often remark on his messy office, filled with books, notes, scribbles of information and statistical research.

Although his theories have been largely adopted by the more traditional teaching movements (especially in standards-based instruction and in the Core Curriculum Movement), Bloom considered himself a progressive. His style of teaching was interactive and encouraging to new ideas of research. Indeed, he was more Progressive than people could have guessed. Before Social Learning Theory existed, Bloom suggested that the environment played a major role in a student’s learning. Before differentiated instruction was an educational buzzword, he believed in tailoring instruction to an individual’s needs. In his later years, Bloom became an educational activist. He worked as a consultant for India and Israel. His advocated an educational system based upon higher-level thinking and a progressive style of teaching. Later, he testified before Congress about the importance of early childhood development. To him, one of his greatest victories was the creation of the Head Start Program.

Bloom's Taxonomy: An Introduction

Bloom's Taxonomy often gets a bad reputation. Aligned with the behaviorist / transmission view of traditional education, the use of objectives now seem synonymous with standardized education.

The reality is that Bloom's Taxonomy was never meant to be a part of the factory model, standardized approach. Instead, the use of objectives were simply a part of a larger theory that combined the study of cognition (using an approach that was later co-opted by the constructivism movement), psychomotor learning and affective learning.
In many ways, Bloom's initial research helped lead to the development of challenging, conceptual, critical thinking rather than simple memorization. He recognized the need for emotional intelligence and self-efficacy in learners.