Demonstration of Educational Objectives (Bloom 1956)

The following categories illustrate the different categories that demonstrate learning has taken place. Take some time to review these categories and think about the ways your experience encompasses them. You may want to look over the list of verbs in each category that suggest what you’ve accomplished through your experience.

Use them as prompts to help you show clearly that learning – and what kind of learning – has taken place.

Knowledge of Terminology

Specific facts; ways and means of dealing with specifics (conventions, trends and sequences, classifications and categories, criteria, methodology); universals and abstractions in a field (principles and generalizations, theories and structures): Knowledge is (here) defined as the remembering (recalling) of appropriate, previously learned information.

  • defines; describes; enumerates; identifies; labels; lists; matches; names; reads; records; reproduces; selects; states; views.

Comprehension

Grasping (understanding) the meaning of informational materials.
classifies; cites; converts; describes; discusses; estimates; explains; generalizes; gives examples; makes sense out of; paraphrases; restates (in own words); summarizes; traces; understands.

Application

The use of previously learned information in new and concrete situations to solve problems that have single or best answers.

  • acts; administers; articulates; assesses; charts; collects; computes; constructs; contributes; controls; determines; develops; discovers; establishes; extends; implements; includes; informs; instructs; operationalizes; participates; predicts; prepares; preserves; produces; projects; provides; relates; reports; shows; solves; teaches; transfers; uses; utilizes.

Analysis

The breaking down of informational materials into their component parts, examining (and trying to understand the organizational structure of) such information to develop divergent conclusions by identifying motives or causes, making inferences, and/or finding evidence to support generalizations.

  • breaks down; correlates; diagrams; differentiates; discriminates; distinguishes; focuses; illustrates; infers; limits; outlines; points out; prioritizes; recognizes; separates; subdivides.

Synthesis

Creatively or divergently applying prior knowledge and skills to produce a new or original whole.

  • adapts; anticipates; categorizes; collaborates; combines; communicates; compares; compiles; composes; contrasts; creates; designs; devises; expresses; facilitates; formulates; generates; incorporates; individualizes; initiates; integrates; intervenes; models; modifies; negotiates; plans; progresses; rearranges; reconstructs; reinforces; reorganizes; revises; structures; substitutes; validates.

Evaluation

Judging the value of material based on personal values/opinions, resulting in an end product, with a given purpose, without real right or wrong answers

  • appraises; compares & contrasts; concludes; criticizes; critiques; decides; defends; interprets; judges; justifies; reframes; supports.