{"id":347102,"date":"2025-08-20T23:50:30","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T04:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/20\/alternatives-to-blooms-taxonomy\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T23:50:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T04:50:30","slug":"alternatives-to-blooms-taxonomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/20\/alternatives-to-blooms-taxonomy\/","title":{"rendered":"Alternatives To Bloom’s Taxonomy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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by TeachThought Staff<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the end of the day, teaching is about learning<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and learning is about understanding.<\/p>\n

And as technology evolves to empower more diverse and flexible assessments forms, constantly improving our sense of what understanding looks like\u2013during mobile learning, during project-based learning, and in a flipped classroom\u2013can not only improve learning outcomes but just might be the secret to providing personalized learning for every learner.<\/p>\n

This content begs the question: why does one need alternatives to the established and entrenched Bloom\u2019s? Because Bloom\u2019s isn\u2019t meant to be the alpha and the omega of framing instruction, learning, and assessment. Benjamin Bloom\u2019s taxonomy does a brilliant job of offering \u2018verbs\u2019 in categories that impose a helpful cognitive framework for planning learning experiences, but it neglects important ideas, such as self-knowledge that UbD places at the pinnacle of understanding, or the idea of moving from incompetence to competence that the SOLO taxonomy offers.<\/p>\n

So with apologies to Bloom (whose work we love<\/a><\/strong>), we have gathered six alternatives to his legendary, world-beating taxonomy, from the TeachThought Learning Taxonomy, to work from Marzano to Fink, to Understanding by Design.<\/p>\n

6 Alternatives To Bloom\u2019s Taxonomy For Teachers<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. The TeachThought Learning Taxonomy<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"alternatives\"alternatives<\/a><\/figure>\n

The <\/a>TeachThought Learning Taxonomy <\/strong>orders isolated tasks that range from less to more complexity into six domains: <\/p>\n

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  1. The Parts (i.e., explain or describe a concept in simple terms)<\/li>\n
  2. The Whole (i.e., explain a concept in micro-detail and macro-context)<\/li>\n
  3. The Interdependence (i.e., explain how a concept relates to similar and non-similar concepts)<\/li>\n
  4. The Function (i.e., apply a concept in unfamiliar situations)<\/li>\n
  5. The Abstraction (i.e., demonstrate a concept\u2019s nuance with artfulness or insight)<\/li>\n
  6. The Self (i.e., self-direct future learning about the concept)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    2. UbD\u2019s Six Facets Of Understanding<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \"facets\"facets<\/figure>\n

    Created by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe to work with and through their Understanding by Design model, the 6 Facets of Understanding is a non-hierarchical framework designed to help teachers evaluate and assess student understanding. <\/p>\n

    3. Marzano & Kendall\/Taxonomy<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \"Marzano\"Marzano
    image attribution: Matt Drewette-Card<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Marzano\u2019s and Kendall\u2019s taxonomy<\/strong> arranges a score of processes into six categories, from lowest to highest level of difficulty. Accompanying each category are verbs and phrases that may prove useful for teachers in designing assessments and evaluating mastery:<\/p>\n

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    1. Retrieval (i.e., executing, recalling, recognizing)<\/li>\n
    2. Comprehension (i.e., integrating and symbolizing)<\/li>\n
    3. Analysis (i.e., matching, classifying, analyzing, generalizing, specifying)<\/li>\n
    4. Knowledge Utilization (i.e., decision-making, problem-solving, experimenting, investigating)<\/li>\n
    5. Metacognition (i.e., monitoring accuracy, monitoring clarity, process monitoring, specifying goals, examining motivation)<\/li>\n
    6. Self System Thinking (i.e. examining emotions, examining efficiency, examining importance)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      4. The Taxonomy Of Significant Learning<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \"taxonomy\"taxonomy<\/figure>\n

      Dr. Dee Fink\u2019s Taxonomy of Significant Learning<\/a><\/strong> describes attributes of \u2018significant\u2019 learning as opposed to \u2018less significant\u2019 learning (the former having greater endurance, resonance, and potential to improve student learning, and the latter being more classroom-centered and less relevant or applicable outside of the classroom). The center of the taxonomy is the \u2018sweet spot\u2019 of learning design. <\/p>\n

      5. Webb\u2019s Depth Of Knowledge Framework<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \"DOK\"DOK
      image attribution: Edmentum<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

      Webb\u2019s Depth of Knowledge<\/strong><\/a> framework is designed to promote rigor, and organizes specific strategies and higher order thinking skills into four domains, moving from lower to higher complexity:<\/p>\n

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      1. Recall<\/li>\n
      2. Skill\/Concept<\/li>\n
      3. Strategic Thinking<\/li>\n
      4. Extended Thinking<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        6. The SOLO Taxonomy<\/strong><\/p>\n

        \"SOLO\"SOLO
        image attribution: Structural Learning<\/em><\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

        SOLO stands for the \u201cstructure of observed learning outcomes.\u201d Created by John Biggs and Kevin Collis, the SOLO taxonomy<\/strong> is made up of five levels of understanding, as illustrated above. According to Biggs, \u201cAt first, we pick up only one or few aspects of the task (unistructural), then several aspects that are unrelated (multi-structural), then we learn how to integrate them into a whole (relational), and finally, we are able to generalize that whole to as yet untaught applications (extended abstract).\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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        [ad_1] by TeachThought Staff At the end of the day, teaching is about learning\u00a0and learning is about understanding. And as technology evolves to empower more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":347103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}