Bloom's Taxonomy: How the pyramid has been misinterpreted

https://lib.guides.umd.edu/c.php?g=598357&p=4142337

Bloom's Taxonomy and the pyramid shown above are commonly known in educational settings. The hierarchy was designed to help educators push students to higher level thinking, and was intended to help with the development of cognitive abilities. 

However, I feel that it is often misinterpreted in educational settings. Many people are under the impression that Bloom's Taxonomy says we should always be aiming for the top three tiers of the pyramid. These are the higher order thinking skills we want our students to develop, so these are the ones we should be practising regularly.

On the other hand, there are people who see the pyramid and immediately cast it aside, having sat through training sessions stating the above, or just having it hammered at them so often they have grown tired of it. These people argue there is no use in it as it is old (1956) or not based on a thorough research base, which is now significantly more advanced.

But I feel both camps are on the wrong track here. As far as I know, Bloom never intended to suggest that we must always aim for the top, and it is this that causes the problems (on both sides).

I actually like the Pyramid structure of the taxonomy, as to me it makes things very clear. To achieve understanding, you need a firm foundation of knowledge. To be able to apply your knowledge successfully, you need to understand it. You cannot analyze something if you cannot apply the basic ideas. To evaluate (that is justify your conclusions) you need to first analyse the material. And, finally, to be able to be creative in a domain, you have to be able to justify your opinions first.

This is the nature of a hierarchy: they build upon themselves. You have to climb to the top, and it is not possible to jump straight there without doing the ground work. This fits in with my view of creativity as the pinnacle of expertise within a domain. We can only be truly creative when we know a lot about something. As an Art teacher once told me, "You have to know the rules in order to break them" when referring to the work of Pablo Picasso.

But there is another aspect of the pyramid image that I like. Notice the size of the pieces. They are not equal. This has two implications:

• You require a LOT of knowledge in a domain to be able to understand it (and so on up the pyramid);
• The amount of time spent teaching knowledge throughout school should be significantly more than the time spent on creating.

I want to clarify for the second point I mean throughout school. When students arrive in our class they already have a vast amount of knowledge they have learned (both in and out of school), especially if we teach in secondary education. That means that most of that block may already have been learned, and we can move up more quickly. In general, the further through their studies of a particular subject, the more higher level thinking we should require. However, it is dangerous to assume this is the case. If there is missing knowledge, or even misconceptions, then the other aspects of higher order thinking will be built on a shaky foundation, and, inevitably, will lead to poor performance and less learning. One of our roles as a teacher is to check for understanding and knowledge before moving on to the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.

And for those people who sit in the latter of the two camps described at the start? Well, I think this interpretation fits in well with ideas from modern cognitive science. For example, Daniel Willingham talks about How Knowledge Helps, which is saying that the bottom of the hierarchy is really important. 

I think that there is a lot of benefit to the ideas of Bloom's Taxonomy, but, as with many things in education, when it is misinterpreted it can be killed off.

Further Reading on Bloom's Taxonomy
Here are three posts from some of the big hitters in education with their take on the Taxonomy.

https://learningspy.co.uk/featured/didaus-taxonomy/

https://theeconomyofmeaning.com/2017/08/24/a-longer-piece-on-the-taxonomy-of-bloom/

http://teachlikeachampion.com/blog/blooms-taxonomy-pyramid-problem/