Blooms Taxonomy was published by Benjamin Bloom and his
associates to classify learning objectives and to create a more holistic approach to education. It included six major categories in the cognitive domain: the knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The most common and frequent use of this has been to classify curricular objectives and test items in order to show the relevance of the objectives and items across the spectrum of the 6 categories. Most importantly, for me, it is very necessary in determining the congruence of the educational objectives, activities, and assessment in a given chapter, course or curriculum. Eventually,
group
of
cognitive
psychologist
and
curriculum
researchers revised the Blooms Taxonomy in which we now call as the
Revised Blooms Taxonomy. The RBT now provides an even more powerful tool to fit the demand of time and circumstances in this 21 st century education. The categories are remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. RBT is more focused on active thinking. It acknowledges the fact that students have the ability to learn and discover the answers to their questions by themselves. Teachers role is just to guide and perhaps provide the stimulus so they could think better and harder. This is where effective questioning comes in. I have further learned during our discussion that it is not necessary that questions to be raised first should be the LOTS. It could be that HOTS questions be thrown first. It really depends on the situation and how the lesson is presented and is done in the classroom. I really believe that any definite knowledge that we, teachers, provide to our students, may not already be relevant in the years to come. Discoveries of today and explanations to them may not even be correct anymore in the future. Therefore, it is not anymore helpful for us teachers to be just teaching knowledge to our students alone. Teaching them how to
recall and memorize concepts is not enough. Students need to be taught
how to think critically and creatively. They need to develop the skills of communicating and collaborating too. In this way, there is greater chance that they survive when they get out from the 4 corners of our classroom. The goal of education is not just the mere transfer of knowledge. It does not end there. This knowledge must be put into practice and should help them in decision making as they continue their journey in life. The challenge then is great on the part of the teachers. I agree with the saying Teach students by merely providing them facts and figures and they will be successful for a few years. Teach students to think and learn on their own and they will be successful for a lifetime. I know that as teachers we dream of seeing our students someday, successful and effective in whatever path of life or career they have chosen. And I am sure we can only do this by doing our best in preparing them to face the challenges of the real world equipped with the essentials of higher order thinking skills utilizing the domains of Revised Blooms Taxonomy.