Post #6

Jason Gaylord
March 1, 2009
Instructor McCulloch
Edu. 422

Post #6

Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy on the different questions a teacher or instructor might ask his or her students is quite interesting. He basically breaks down the different kinds of questions there are a possibility of being asked and maps the amount of thinking that actually needs to take place to answer the question. Questions based solely on knowledge such as memorizing and reciting facts are at the base of his pyramid because these kinds of questions are the most simple and require the least amount of thinking. He follows knowledge categorized questions with Comprehension, Application, Synthesis, and Evaluation. Starting from the least to the greatest, these types of questions require different amounts of thinking to answer. His reasoning for developing this taxonomy is to come up with a way to measure the difficulty and purpose for asking particular questions. Most importantly, however, this taxonomy allows teachers to develop tests and ask questions that promote or force their students to use more of their brain than just reciting facts. Too often and as the reading presents specifically, 95% of questions asked on tests are just asking students to recite knowledge they learned, instead of asking them to actually apply, synthesize, and evaluate the knowledge. What this means is that teachers are not promoting students to use and assess the full potential of the knowledge they learned. If utilized correctly, Bloom's taxonomy can be used by teachers to push their students to their full potential.