Benjamin S. Bloom

1. Benjamin S. Bloom ED 530 Theorist Presentation Fall Semester 2010 Dr. Richard Clark

2. Background • Born February 21, 1913 in Lansford, PA • B.A. from Penn State University in 1935 • M.S. from Penn State University in 1935 • Ph.D. in Education from University of Chicago in 1942 • Trained in Educational Psychology Image Source: http://redie.uabc.mx/contenido/vol6no2/art-104-spa/bloom.png

3. Background • University Examiner at Univ. of Chicago: Developed tests to determine if undergraduate students had mastered the material necessary for them to receive their degrees (1943-1959) • Appointed Distinguished Service Professor (1970) • Served as educational advisor to governments of Israel, India, and numerous other nations • Died September 13, 1999 in Chicago, IL at the age of 86

4. Bloom’s Taxonomy • In 1948 he and a group of colleagues with the American Psychological Association began conversations that led to the taxonomy of educational goals (Bloom’s Taxonomy) • Found that over 95% of test questions students encountered required them to think at the lowest level possible (recall) • Published Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain in 1956 • Second book in the series, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Volume II: The Affective Domain published in 1964

5. Bloom’s Taxonomy • Based on the premise that cognitive operations can be ordered into six increasingly complex levels • Each subsequent level depends on the student’s ability to perform at preceding levels • Effort to hierarchically order cognitive processes • Designed to help teachers classify instructional objectives and goals to develop higher order thinking skills of students

6. Bloom’s Taxonomy • Divides educational objectives into three overlapping “domains” • Cognitive: demonstrated by knowledge recall and intellectual skills • Affective: demonstrated by behaviors indicating attitudes of awareness, interest, attention, concern, and responsibility • Psychomotor: demonstrated by physical skills including coordination, dexterity, manipulation, grace, strength, and speed

7. Bloom’s Taxonomy Revised • Lorin Anderson (former student of Bloom) revisited the taxonomy in the 1990’s • Changed the six categories from noun to verb forms since thinking is an active process • Some categories were reorganized/renamed • Changed emphasis to focus on the taxonomy in use • Redesigned to be an authentic tool for curriculum planning, instructional delivery, and assessment • Emphasizes an explanation of the subcategories

8. Bloom’s Taxonomy Revised Image from: http://edtechvision.org/?p=123

10. Thought Process Research • Worked with Broder in 1958 • Studied thought processes of college students • Wanted to reveal what students were thinking about when teachers were teaching • Recognized that what students were experiencing was what ultimately mattered • Use of think-aloud protocols provided basis for gaining insight into student thought processes

11. Early Childhood Research • Published Stability and Change in Human Characteristics in 1964 • Led to an upsurge of interest in early childhood education, including the creation of the Head Start program • Bloom showed that many physical and mental characteristics of adults can be predicted through testing done while they are still children • He also found that early experiences in the home have a great impact on later learning

12. Mastery Learning • Believed that it was possible to arrange the ways in which learning could be promoted • Recognized that students should not be compared, but should be helped to achieve the goals of the curriculum they were studying • Accommodate differences in learning rather than expect some students to fail • He believed curriculum design was the problem

13. Other Research • 1980 publication of All Our Children Learning summarized his work and showed that all children can learn at a high level when appropriate practices are undertaken in the home and school

14. Gifted/Talented Research • Bloom also conducted research on talented youngsters and published Developing Talent in Young People in 1985 • Found that world-famous high-achieving adults were seldom regarded as child prodigies • What made the difference was the kind of attention and support they received at home from their parents

15. “Basically, his message to the educational world is to focus on target attainment and to abandon a horse-race model of schooling that has as its major aim the identification of those who are swiftest. Speed is not the issue, achievement or mastery is, and it is that model that should be employed in trying to develop educational programs for the young,” (Eisner, 2000, p.5).

16. References Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Behavioral Objectives. Retrieved September 20, 2009 http://hs.riverdale.k12.or.us/~dthompso/exhibition/blooms.htm. Bloom, influential education researcher. (1999). The University of Chicago Chronicle, 19 (1). Retrieved September 20, 2009 from http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/990923/bloom.shtml. Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. Retrieved September 20, 2009, from http://www.kurwongbss.eq.edu.au/thinking/Bloom/blooms.htm. Eisner, E. W. (2000). Benjamin Bloom. Prospects: the quarterly review of comparative education, 30 (3).