Teaching Prepared by Caroline W. Ndirangu

Classification of learning objectives
To insure diversity of goals and objectives when planning you must consider using 
a systematic classification of education objectives. One widely used classification 
scheme was proposed fifty years ago by Benjamin Bloom (1956). 

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African Virtual University
   
Reading# 1
Read about Bloom’s taxonomy of Educational Objectives from the following 
readings and perform the tasks indicated below.
Step 1
Reading I:  Blooms Taxonomy
Do the following tasks referring to the readings above on Bloom’s Taxonomy
i).   Distinguish between low and high order objectives using 40- 60 words.
ii).  Draw a Hierarchy of Bloom’s Taxonomy of the cognitive domain.
iii). Write short notes 50-60 words on each of the following orders of Blooms 
Taxonomy of the cognitive domain;
•  Knowledge
•  Comprehension
•  Application
•  Analysis
•  Synthesis
•  Evaluation

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African Virtual University
   
These tasks should have helped you establish that according to Bloom, the lowest 
order objective is knowledge which involves recalling information of previously 
learned material while the highest order objective is evaluation which involves 
judging the value of the product.
iv).  Go back to the readings of Bloom’s Taxonomy and note that it was revised 
in the year 2001. Identify the educators who revised the taxonomy and 
summarize their revision views in 200-250 words. 
In this unit on instruction, we will be exploring how this taxonomy of objectives 
influences how learning is organized. The major idea of the taxonomy is that 
what educators want students to know can be arranged in a hierarchy from less to 
more complex levels of learning. Bloom is also reminding teachers to set a variety 
of objectives. The purpose of writing objectives is to define what the instructor 
wants the student to learn; using detailed objectives will also help students to 
better understand the purpose of each activity by clarifying the student’s activity 
during the lesson.
Learning Tip
Blooms Taxonomy in the cognitive domain can be arranged in a hierarchy, from 
less  to  more  complex  as  follows:    Knowledge,  Comprehension,  Application, 
Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation. In selecting objectives teachers must also 
build the level of the content to be taught and activities to be learnt from simple 
to the complex.
First, we will establish the different components of learning objectives.