How to Use Bloom's Taxonomy in eLearning – Verbs and Activities
Open almost any compliance course and count the questions that ask learners to remember a fact. Then count the ones that ask them to use it. The first number is usually much bigger. That imbalance is exactly what Bloom's taxonomy was built to expose, and it remains one of the most practical tools a designer can keep nearby. How do you actually use Bloom's taxonomy to build eLearning that asks people to think, decide and apply?
To use Bloom's taxonomy in eLearning, match each learning objective to the level of thinking the job really requires (remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate or create), then choose a verb, an activity and an assessment at that same level. If a task requires judgment, the course must give learners practice making judgments, not just reading about them. The taxonomy works as a checklist for alignment: it helps you spot courses that teach at one level and test at another. It is not a rule that every course must climb to the top. The right level is the one the job demands.
What Is Bloom's Taxonomy?
Bloom's taxonomy is a classification of learning goals by the kind of thinking they require. Benjamin Bloom and a group of colleagues published the original framework in 1956 to help educators write and compare objectives and test items. It covered the cognitive domain with six levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
In 2001, Lorin Anderson, David Krathwohl and colleagues published a revision. They renamed the levels as verbs, swapped the top two and added a second dimension describing the type of knowledge involved (factual, conceptual, procedural and metacognitive). Most designers today use the revised version. The history of Bloom's taxonomy and its revision is worth a quick read if you only know the pyramid graphic.
Bloom's group also worked on affective goals (attitudes and values), and others later developed psychomotor taxonomies for physical skills. In eLearning, though, the cognitive domain gets almost all the attention.
What Are the Six Levels, with eLearning Verbs and Activities?
The table below pairs each revised level with typical verbs and activities that work well in self-paced eLearning.
| Level | What the learner does | Example verbs | eLearning activity ideas |
|---|---|---|---|
| Remember | Recalls facts, terms or steps | list, name, recall, recognize | Flashcard drills, matching, short recall quizzes |
| Understand | Explains meaning in their own terms | explain, summarize, classify, paraphrase | Sort examples into categories, pick the best explanation |
| Apply | Uses a procedure in a given situation | calculate, complete, use, demonstrate | Software simulations, worked problems, fill in a real form |
| Analyze | Breaks a situation into parts and finds causes | diagnose, compare, distinguish, troubleshoot | Find the error in a case, troubleshooting scenarios |
| Evaluate | Makes and justifies a judgment | decide, prioritize, critique, justify | Branching scenarios, rank options with reasons |
| Create | Produces something new or original | design, draft, plan, build | Draft a plan or response, build a project submitted for review |
I treat the verb lists as starting points, not rules, and I'd suggest you do the same. Verbs can shift level depending on context. "Identify" a hazard in a photo you've seen before is remembering. "Identify" the cause of a fault in an unfamiliar system is analysis.
How Do You Use Bloom's Taxonomy When Designing a Course?
Use it at three points in the design: when writing objectives, when choosing activities and when building assessments.
- Start from the job. Ask what people must do and what kind of thinking it involves. A help desk technician mostly troubleshoots (analyze). A new safety officer mostly makes judgment calls (evaluate).
- Assign a level to each objective. Write the objective with a verb at that level.
- Choose practice at the same level. If the objective is "prioritize incoming tickets," learners need to practice prioritizing, not reading about prioritization.
- Build assessment at the same level. A recall quiz cannot tell you whether someone can troubleshoot.
- Fill in the foundation. Add the remember and understand content that learners need for the higher task, and only that content.
Step five turns the usual approach on its head. Instead of starting with all the information and hoping application follows, you start with the application and pull in only the knowledge it requires.
What Does One Topic Look Like Across the Levels?
Here is a single workplace topic, handling customer refunds, written at each level. It shows how the same content can call for very different activities.
- Remember: List the three refund methods the company offers.
- Understand: Explain in your own words why store credit is offered first for opened items.
- Apply: Process a refund in the simulated order system for a standard return.
- Analyze: Review a refund that was flagged by finance and find what went wrong.
- Evaluate: Decide whether to approve an unusual refund request and justify the decision against the policy.
- Create: Draft a response template for a type of refund request the policy doesn't cover yet.
Most frontline staff need solid apply and evaluate skills here. A course that stops at remember, which many do, leaves the hardest part to on-the-job trial and error.
What Is the Knowledge Dimension, and Why Should Designers Care?
The knowledge dimension is the part of the 2001 revision that most people skip, and it is one of the most useful for eLearning. It sorts what learners need to know into four types:
- Factual knowledge: terms, details and specific facts, such as the names of form fields.
- Conceptual knowledge: categories, principles and models, such as why some customers qualify for an exception.
- Procedural knowledge: how to do something, including steps, techniques and when to use them.
- Metacognitive knowledge: awareness of your own thinking, such as knowing when you are unsure and should check a reference.
Crossing the two dimensions gives you a grid. "Apply procedural knowledge" points to a simulation. "Evaluate conceptual knowledge" points to a judgment scenario. The grid helps you see that a course full of factual content at the remember level is covering only one small corner of what people need.
Metacognitive goals deserve special mention in workplace learning. Teaching people to recognize when a situation is outside their training, and what to do then, can prevent more errors than any amount of extra content.
How Should Feedback Change at Each Level?
Feedback should get richer as the level rises. At the remember level, "correct" or "the answer is B" is often enough. At the analyze and evaluate levels, learners need to know why their choice worked or didn't, and what a skilled person would have noticed. In branching scenarios, the best feedback is often the consequence itself: show what happens next because of the decision, then explain the reasoning.
Can Multiple-Choice Questions Test Higher Levels?
Yes, if they are written well. A multiple-choice question that asks "What is the refund limit?" tests recall. One that describes a customer, a purchase and a complaint, then asks which response best follows policy, tests evaluation.
The trick is to put the thinking in the stem. Give learners a realistic situation with enough detail that they must apply, analyze or judge to choose the answer. Make the wrong options plausible mistakes that real people make, not obviously silly choices. Scenario-based questions take longer to write, but they measure what the job needs.
What Do People Get Wrong About Bloom's Taxonomy?
A few common beliefs don't hold up when you look at what Bloom's group and later researchers actually wrote.
"It's a Strict Ladder"
The pyramid graphic suggests learners must master each level before moving up. The authors described a cumulative hierarchy, but in practice the levels overlap, and people often learn facts while working on a real problem. Starting with a challenging task and supporting it with just-in-time information can work well.
"Higher Is Always Better"
Not every objective needs to reach create or evaluate. Some jobs truly require accurate recall, such as knowing emergency shutdown codes. The goal is a match between the level of the objective and the level of the task.
"The Pyramid Came from Bloom"
The familiar triangle is a later teaching graphic, not part of the original 1956 handbook. It is a useful reminder, but don't let its shape suggest that the top is small or rare.
Where Does Bloom's Taxonomy Fit with Other Models?
Bloom's taxonomy tells you what kind of thinking an objective requires. It doesn't tell you how to sequence a lesson. For that, many designers pair it with Gagné's nine events of instruction, which lays out the steps of an effective lesson from gaining attention to supporting transfer to the job. Used together, Bloom's helps you aim the lesson and Gagné helps you structure it.
Put Bloom's Taxonomy to Work on Your Next Module
Bloom's taxonomy is most useful as an alignment check. Decide what level of thinking the job requires, write objectives at that level and make sure practice and assessment ask for the same thing. Fill in lower-level knowledge only as needed to support the real task.
Practice shapes skill. If a course only asks people to remember, they will remember, and still struggle when the job asks them to decide.
An existing course makes a good test case. Label every quiz question with its Bloom's level, then compare that list with what the job really requires. The gap you find is your revision plan.