Bloom's Taxonomy and Your First Year of Community College

In your first year of attending community college, you will recognize material you’ve learned before, and you will practice your skills of defining and remembering. But you’ll soon find that Bloom’s first level isn’t going to get you very far. To remember new information, you’ll need to move to level 2: understanding the information clearly enough so that you can describe the concepts to someone else. Many of your classes will require you to apply what you learn to new situations (level 3), and you’ll also need to use levels 4 and 5 to analyze (break apart) and synthesize (bring together) new concepts. Finally, you’ll reach level 6 as you begin trusting your own judgments in evaluating what you are learning. As you progress through your first year, be aware of how you use each of these levels to build your critical thinking skills.

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FIGURE 10.2 > The Six Levels of Learning of Bloom’s Taxonomy