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Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Write Effective

Learning Objectives
by jshabatu | Mar 19, 2018 | Best Practices, Course Design |

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a classi cation of the different objectives and skills that educators set for their
students (learning objectives).

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Bloom’s Taxonomy is a classi cation of the different objectives and skills that educators set for their
students (learning objectives).

What is Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a classi cation of the different objectives and skills that educators set for
their students (learning objectives). The taxonomy was proposed in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom,
an educational psychologist at the University of Chicago. The terminology has been recently
updated to include the following six levels of learning. These 6 levels can be used to structure
the learning objectives, lessons, and assessments of your course. :

1. Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long‐

term memory.
2. Understanding: Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages
through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing,
and explaining.
3. Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure for executing, or implementing.
4. Analyzing: Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate
to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating,
organizing, and attributing.
5. Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking
and critiquing.
6. Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional
whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning,
or producing.
Like other taxonomies, Bloom’s is hierarchical, meaning that learning at the higher levels is
dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and skills at lower levels. You will see
Bloom’s Taxonomy often displayed as a pyramid graphic to help demonstrate this hierarchy. We
have updated this pyramid into a “cake-style” hierarchy to emphasize that each level is built on
a foundation of the previous levels.

You may use this graphic for educational or non-pro t use if you include a credit for Jessica Shabatura
and citation back to this website.

How Bloom’s can aid in course design

Bloom’s taxonomy is a powerful tool to help develop learning objectives because it explains the
process of learning:

Before you can understand a concept, you must remember it.

To apply a concept you must  rst understand it.
In order to evaluate a process, you must have analyzed it.
To create an accurate conclusion, you must have completed a thorough
evaluation.

However, we don’t always start with lower order skills and step all the way through the entire
taxonomy for each concept you present in your course. That approach would become tedious–
for both you and your students! Instead, start by considering the level of learners in your
course:

1. Are lots of your students freshman? Is this an “Introduction to…” course? If so, many
your learning objectives may target the lower order Bloom’s skills, because your students
are building foundational knowledge. However, even in this situation we would strive to
 move a few of your objectives into the applying and analyzing level, but getting too far up in
the taxonomy could create frustration and unachievable goals.
2. Are most of your students juniors and seniors? Graduate students? Do your students
have a solid foundation in much of the terminology and processes you will be working on
your course? If so, then you should not have many remembering and understanding level
objectives. You may need a few, for any radically new concepts speci c to your course.
However, these advanced students should be able to master higher-order learning
objectives. Too many lower level objectives might cause boredom or apathy. 

How Bloom’s works with learning objectives

Fortunately, there are “verb tables” to help identify which action verbs align with each level in
Bloom’s Taxonomy.

You may notice that some of these verbs on the table are associated with multiple Bloom’s
Taxonomy levels. These “multilevel-verbs” are actions that could apply to different
activities. For example, you could have an objective that states “At the end of this lesson,
students will be able to explain the difference between H2O and OH-.” This would be an
understanding level objective. However, if you wanted the students to be able to “…explain the
shift in the chemical structure of water throughout its various phases.” This would be an
analyzing level verb.

Adding to this confusion, you can locate Bloom’s verb charts that will list verbs at levels
different from what we list below. Just keep in mind that it is the skill, action or activity you will
teach using that verb that determines the Bloom’s Taxonomy level.

Bloom’s Level Key Verbs (keywords) Example Learning Objective

By the end of this lesson, the student

design, formulate, build, invent,
will be able to design an original
Create create, compose, generate, derive,
homework problem dealing with the
modify, develop.
principle of conservation of energy.

By the end of this lesson, the student

choose, support, relate,
will be able to determine whether
determine, defend, judge, grade,
using conservation of energy or
Evaluate compare, contrast, argue, justify,
conservation of momentum would
support, convince, select,
be more appropriate for solving a
evaluate.
dynamics problem.

classify, break down, categorize, By the end of this lesson, the student
Analyze analyze, diagram, illustrate, will be able to differentiate between
criticize, simplify, associate. potential and kinetic energy.
 Apply calculate, predict, apply, solve, By the end of this lesson, the student
illustrate, use, demonstrate, will be able to calculate the kinetic
determine, model, perform, energy of a projectile.
present.

describe, explain, paraphrase, By the end of this lesson, the student

restate, give original examples of, will be able to describe Newton’s
Understand
summarize, contrast, interpret, three laws of motion to in her/his
discuss. own words

list, recite, outline, de ne, name, By the end of this lesson, the student
Remember match, quote, recall, identify, will be able to recite Newton’s three
label, recognize. laws of motion.

Learning objective examples adapted from, Nelson Baker at Georgia Tech:

[email protected]

How Bloom’s works with Quality Matters

For a course to meet the Quality Matters standards it must have learning objectives that are
measurable. Using a verb table like the one above will help you avoid verbs that cannot be
quanti ed, like: understand, learn, appreciate, or enjoy. Quality Matters also requires that your
course assessments (activities, projects, and exams) align with your learning objectives. For
example, if your learning objective has an application level verb, such as “present”, then you
cannot demonstrate that your students have mastered that learning objective by simply having
a multiple choice quiz.

Course level and lesson level objectives

The biggest difference between course and lesson level objectives is that we don’t directly
assess course level objectives. Course level objectives are just too broad. Instead, we use
several lesson level objectives to demonstrate mastery of one course level objective.  To create
good course level objectives, we need to ask ourselves: “what do I want the students to have
mastery of at the end of the course?” Then, after we nalize our course level objectives, we
have to make sure that mastery of all of the lesson level objectives underneath con rm that a
student has mastery of the course level objective—in other words, if your students can prove
(through assessment) that they can do each and every one of the lesson level objectives in that
section, then you as an instructor agree they have mastery of the course level objective.

How Bloom’s works with course level and lesson level

objectives:
Course level objectives are broad. You may only have 3-5 course level
objectives. They would be dif cult to measure directly because they overarch the
topics of your entire course.
Lesson level objectives are what we use to demonstrate that a student has
mastery of the course level objectives. We do this by building lesson level objectives
 that build toward the course level objective. For example, a student might need to
demonstrate mastery of 8 lesson level objectives in order to demonstrate mastery
of one course level objective.
Because the lesson level objectives directly support the course level objectives,
they need to build up the Bloom’s taxonomy to help your students reach mastery of
the course level objectives. Use Bloom’s Taxonomy to make sure that the verbs you
choose for your lesson level objectives build up to the level of the verb that is in the
course level objective. The lesson level verbs can be below or equal to the course
level verb, but they CANNOT be higher in level. For example, your course level verb
might be an Applying level verb, “illustrate.” Your lesson level verbs can be from any
Bloom’s level that is equal or below this level (applying, understanding, or
remembering).

Steps towards writing effective learning objectives:

1. Make sure there is one measurable verb in each objective.
2. Each objective needs one verb. Either a student can master the objective, or they fail to
master it. If an objective has two verbs (say, de ne and apply), what happens if a student can
de ne, but not apply? Are they demonstrating mastery?
3. Ensure that the verbs in the course level objective are at least at the highest Bloom’s
Taxonomy as the highest lesson level objectives that support it. (Because we can’t verify they
can evaluate if our lessons only taught them (and assessed) to de ne.)
4. Strive to keep all your learning objectives measurable, clear and concise.

When you are ready to write, it can be helpful to list the level of Bloom’s next to the verb you
choose in parentheses. For example:

Course level objective 1.  (apply) Demonstrate how transportation is a critical link in the

supply chain.
1.1.  (understand) Discuss the changing global landscape for businesses and other
organizations that are driving change in the global environment.
1.2.  (apply) Demonstrate the special nature of transportation demand and the in uence of
transportation on companies and their supply chains operating in a global economy.

This trick will help you quickly see what level verbs you have. It will also let you check that the
course level objective is at least as high of a Bloom’s level as any of the lesson level objectives
underneath.

Before you begin constructing your objectives:

Please read our Learning Objectives: Before and After Examples page.

Additional External Resources:

For a longer list of Bloom’s Verbs – TIPS tip: You can also use the “ nd” function (press: Ctrl-f or
command-f on a mac) in your browser to locate speci c verbs on this list.

To see how Bloom’s can be applied speci cally to distance education: Digital Approaches to
Bloom’s Taxonomy

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