Blooms Taxonomy

Created by Benjamin Bloom and a team of psychologists in 1948, Bloom’s Taxonomy is a method of classifying educational objectives into 3 groups, or domains. It also outlines six levels of learning; knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The first four levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy are generally accepted to be hierarchical, however, there has been a considerable amount of debate over the final two levels. Krathwohl suggested the idea that evaluation is easier than synthesis. Lutz and Huitt, in contrast, believed that evaluation uses critical thinking skills and synthesis uses creative thinking skills. Therefore, they are the same in terms of difficulty, merely processed in different ways. (Nappi, J.S., 2017)

The Socratic Method is named after Socrates, who is believed to have been the first educator to use questioning when teaching his students over 2,000 years ago. Socrates used questions to challenge people’s beliefs and enable them to build firmer views. The Socratic Method involves asking a series of systematic, planned questions that enable students to reflect on their own beliefs. The practitioner’s role in the Socratic Method is to start as a participant and take up the role of the questioner which the children will take over once they are comfortable with this method. Merritts and Walter (n.d.) further say that the role of the practitioner is to guide children while discussion takes place, while also addressing misconceptions. This enables a better understanding of the subject matter. A class teacher can utilise the Socratic Method during questioning by allowing the children time to answer questions and providing the opportunity for open discussion between the children themselves. Merritts and Walter (n.d.) suggest that children should be allowed between five and ten seconds before responding to the question. They also reinforce the importance of opening discussion by asking in-depth questions that engage as many children as possible. This discussion-based learning is an important element with the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy because it allows the teacher to follow through the successive levels of questioning leading

Since schools were permitted to create their own methods of assessment, Bloom’s Taxonomy has been growing in popularity and schools are adopting Bloom’s in all year groups including early years. One method is using De Bono’s Thinking Hats. De Bono developed a system of six hats which each correlate to different thinking skills, and levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The white hat relates to the knowledge level of Bloom’s with the focus being the recollection of facts, data and information, the blue hat is on the comprehension level, focusing on organising, processing, and metacognition. The black and yellow hats both analysis, the black hat looking mainly at the negatives, while the yellow hat looks at the positives. The green hat relates to synthesis and the development of new ideas, creativity and possibilities. Finally, the red hat is the evaluation level of Bloom’s, where children talk about feelings, emotions and intuition. Children within the EYFS setting can be introduced to the idea of the thinking hats by using physical hats that the children wear to demonstrate an understanding of the different thinking levels. De Bono’s thinking hats are more engaging for younger children as they are more pictorial than Bloom’s Taxonomy and are easier for them to remember and understand. This method could be linked into the continuous