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In 1956, Benjamin Bloom headed a group of educational
psychologists who developed a classification of levels of
intellectual behavior important
in learning. Bloom found that over 95 % of the test questions
students encounter require
them to think only at the lowest possible level...the recall of
information.Bloom
identified six levels within the cognitive domain, from the simple
recall or recognition
of facts, as the lowest level, through increasingly more complex
and abstract mental
levels, to the highest order which is classified as evaluation.
Six levels of Blooms :
- Remembering / Knowledge or recall of data, expresses the natural urge to
recall
previously learned material. So knowledge, or being told, can be a
foundation for very
much learning.
It provides a basis for higher levels of thinking, but is rote in
nature.
Insight rides on top of it.
- Understanding / Comprehension, the ability to grasp meaning, explain,
restate ideas,
means understanding the basic information and translating, interpreting,
and extrapolating
it.
- Application, or using learned material in new
situations, involves
using information, ideas, and skills to solve problems, then selecting
and applying them
appropriately.
- Analysis suggests separating items, or separate
material into
component parts and show relationships between parts. It also means
breaking apart
information and ideas into their component parts.
- Creating / Synthesis suggests the ability to put together
separate ideas to form
new wholes of a fabric, or establish new relationships. Synthesis
involves putting
together ideas and knowledge in a new and unique form. This is where
innovations truly
take place.
- Evaluation is the highest level in this arrangement.
Here the
ability to judge the worth of material against stated criteria will show
itself.
Evaluation involves reviewing and asserting evidence, facts, and ideas,
then making
appropriate statements and judegments.
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