In 1956, educational psychologist Dr. Benjamin Bloom created a system to classify learning objectives into a series of learning domains that encourage teachers to think holistically about education. His system came to be known as Bloom’s Taxonomy. Much has been written about it, and it has been widely applied, including here at Davenport.
Bloom identified three domains, or categories, of educational activities:
When these learning domain ideas are applied to learning environments, active verbs are used to describe the kind of knowledge and intellectual engagement we want our students to demonstrate.
The Cognitive Domain develops six areas of intellectual skills that build sequentially from simple to complex behaviors.
Bloom arranged them this way:
In time, this arrangement evolved into what we now call Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. Category names were changed from nouns to verbs, but are still ordered from simple to complex:
The Affective Domain includes five areas of emotional response, categorized as simple to complex ways of processing feelings and attitude. Bloom arranged them this way:
The Psychomotor Domain, which focuses on physical skills, was identified, but not defined, by Dr. Bloom. His original ideas were expanded by 1970s educators, including Dr. Elizabeth Simpson, who developed them in this simple-to-complex order: