Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Deepen Your Understanding of a Topic

Greetings, Readers!

Welcome back to another edition of "Musings of a Book Queen," where we look at the world of lifelong learning. Today we talk about Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Introduction: Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Deepen Your Understanding of a Topic

When you read nonfiction books and take notes, you remember more of what you read and learn. There are a few more things you can do to get a lot more from your reading and learning experience. Let’s say you want to build a strong foundation on a specific topic. Choose three to five books to read to become knowledgeable.

As you read, note essential information. And use the strategic reading technique I’ve written so often about. This allows you to focus on what matters to you.

Have you ever heard of Bloom’s Taxonomy? I’m going to show you how to use this model to deepen your learning.?

Bloom’s Taxonomy

• Hierarchy of learning levels.
• From shallow to deep learning.
• From rote memorization to the highest levels of understanding the application.

Bloom’s Taxonomy has six levels. The lowest level is Remember, and the highest is Create. When you read to learn, aim to get to the highest level of the model. Think back to a time when you read books to learn something. Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, what level were you most frequently operating at? Unfortunately, most people stay at Levels One and Two

Levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy

1. Remember: You have memorized the information, but you cannot interpret it or put it into your own words.
2. Understand: You can put the information into your own words and explain it by creating analogies and examples people can apply to their lives.
3. Apply: You can use the concepts to solve real problems and projects that you have never seen before.
4. Analyze: You can take a new concept that you just learned and break it down into its parts.
5. Evaluate: You can look at two different processes others propose and determine for yourself which one is likelier.
6. Create: You come up with your own ideas about solving different problems or designing different processes to achieve the same goals. You organize the information in new ways, to come up with something new.

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy

When you read different books on a topic, you’ll find that authors often agree and disagree on certain points. However, you get to decide what you choose to believe based on your knowledge and experience. To move from level one to level six, here’s what to do. Some of the information may be familiar because I’ve talked about it before.

When Reading to Learn

Preview

• Scan the book before you read it.?
• Look at diagrams, images, bold text, summary.?
• Develop questions you want answered.

Read a Book

• Read the book.?
• Take meaningful notes.?
• Answer the questions you developed.?
• Discover and experience ideas.

Review

• Review your notes after you finish reading the book.?
• Reorganize the information.?
• Note questions you still have.?
• You see things you might have missed.

Learn

• Practice active recall to remember what you read.
• Fill in the gaps for what you forgot.
• How do you plan to use the new knowledge?
• What are the big ideas?
• Break down chapters or the book into manageable chunks.

Assess

• Can you teach what you learned to another person?
• Are you reading effectively?

Do you see how this is an active approach to reading and learning? Sometimes before I go to sleep, I’d try to recall what I learned during the day. This is something I need to do again.

How can you use the new information from the books to create something?

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Warm regards,

Avil Beckford

Editor, Musings of a Book Queen