1Remember
Retrieve something you have learned: a fact, a term, or a procedure.
Bloom’s taxonomy.
Make thinking visible.
A practical learning hub for turning what you hope learners will understand into what they can actually do.
Explore the six levels of the revised taxonomy, find an action verb, and build a learning objective you can teach and assess.
A planning map, not a ladder every lesson must climb.
What is Bloom’s taxonomy?
Bloom’s taxonomy is a framework for describing the thinking a learning task asks for. The revised cognitive taxonomy names six processes: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create. It helps you make an objective, a learning activity, and an assessment ask for the same kind of work.
A topic tells you what
“Pond ecosystems”
An objective tells you what learners do
“Explain how a change in one population affects a pond food web.”
This guide focuses on the cognitive domain. Attitudes, values, and physical skills also matter in learning; these six categories do not describe every educational goal.
Six levels. One topic. A different task.
Keep the topic fixed and notice what changes. Select a level to see the thinking and the evidence it would leave behind.
Remember · Pond ecosystems · Illustrative example
Label the producer, consumer, and decomposer in a provided pond food web.
What makes it Remember? The labels show recall of ecological roles. Learners are not yet explaining the relationships.
Understand · Pond ecosystems · Illustrative example
Explain how a decrease in pond plants could affect the animals in a given food web.
What makes it Understand? The explanation connects a change to its consequences, rather than repeating the names of organisms.
Apply · Pond ecosystems · Illustrative example
Use the provided sampling procedure to estimate the number of pond organisms in a new sample.
What makes it Apply? The learner carries out a method. Inventing a new sampling method would ask for a different kind of thinking.
Analyze · Pond ecosystems · Illustrative example
Compare two pond food webs to identify which relationships could explain their different responses to drought.
What makes it Analyze? The comparison reveals relationships that explain a pattern. Simply listing differences would not establish the same demand.
Evaluate · Pond ecosystems · Illustrative example
Recommend one of two pond-restoration plans, justifying the choice against biodiversity and cost criteria.
What makes it Evaluate? A preference becomes a reasoned judgment when the learner weighs evidence against stated criteria.
Create · Pond ecosystems · Illustrative example
Design a pond-restoration plan that addresses two threats and explains how its impact could be monitored.
What makes it Create? The learner develops a coherent solution within constraints. Copying an existing plan would not show the same process.
An action-verb bank you can use
Select any verb to copyThese are writing prompts, not fixed classifications. Read the whole task: its content, conditions, and expected evidence.7
2Understand
Make meaning by explaining, interpreting, classifying, or summarizing.
3Apply
Carry out a procedure in a given situation, familiar or new.
4Analyze
Separate material into parts and work out how those parts fit together.
5Evaluate
Make a judgment and support it with criteria and evidence.
6Create
Bring elements together into a new, coherent plan, explanation, or product.
The verb opens the door. The task sets the demand. “Compare” might ask learners to notice obvious features, or to analyze relationships. “Create a list from memory” is still recall. Choose the thinking first, then choose words that make it observable.
From 1956 to 2001: what changed?
The original handbook grew from a group of educational measurement specialists working with Benjamin Bloom. The revision, edited by Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl, updated the framework for learning, teaching, and assessment.12
1956 Original cognitive taxonomy
2001 Revised cognitive taxonomy
1. Knowledge1. Remember
2. Comprehension2. Understand
3. Application3. Apply
4. Analysis4. Analyze
5. Synthesis6. CreatePosition changed
6. Evaluation5. EvaluatePosition changed
Actions become easier to name
Noun labels become verbs. Knowledge’s recall aspect becomes Remember; Comprehension becomes Understand. Synthesis becomes Create and moves after Evaluate.
More than a new set of labels
The revision separates what knowledge learners work with from what they do with it. It also allows overlap between categories, rather than requiring a strict sequence.3
Why use the revision? Its action labels and two dimensions make it useful for planning observable learning and checking alignment. The original still appears in curricula and research; name the version you use, especially when comparing studies.
The half of Bloom’s you don’t see in a pyramid.
The 2001 revision is two-dimensional. Pair a cognitive process with the kind of knowledge it works on.
- Factual
- Terms and details · name a species
- Conceptual
- Relationships and principles · explain a food web
- Procedural
- Methods and when to use them · choose a sampling method
- Metacognitive
- Knowledge of thinking and strategies · explain when your study approach needs to change
AnalyzeConceptual knowledge
Examine how the relationships in a food web explain a change.
A taxonomy category is not a measure of task difficulty or learner ability. An unfamiliar recall task can be hard; a well-practiced design task can feel easier. Plan with the learners’ prior knowledge in mind.
Download the six-process diagram · SVG
Turn an intention into a learning objective.
Start with the evidence you want learners to produce. Then make the action, content, conditions, and standard clear enough to guide teaching.
An intention
“Understand water quality.”
What would count as understanding?An objective you can assess · Illustrative example
By the end of the workshop, recommend one of two water filters using the supplied test results, justifying the choice against cost and water-quality criteria.
Choose a meaningful performance
What will learners do with the content? Use one main action where possible. Split outcomes that need different teaching or assessment.
Add the conditions that matter
With a source, a case, a tool, or without assistance? Include conditions when they change what success means.
Make success recognizable
A correct procedure, a design meeting constraints, or a judgment supported by evidence. Use a rubric when quality needs more than a count.
Match the activity and assessment
If the goal is to evaluate, let learners practice evaluating and assess a reasoned judgment. A recall quiz alone will not show it.
The same approach works in school, higher education, and workplace learning. For example: “Demonstrate the equipment shutdown procedure using the safety checklist, completing every critical step.” The context decides the appropriate demand.
Bloom’s names the thinking.
SMART sharpens the objective.
SMART is a separate writing aid. In LOGEN, it means Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Use the questions below to improve a draft, then check that the result still represents worthwhile learning.
SSpecificOne learner action on clearly named content.
Name the learner action and its content: compare two local water samples, rather than “learn about water.”
MMeasurableObservable evidence, and how well it must be done when that matters.
Choose evidence you can inspect: a labeled diagram, a reasoned recommendation, or a correct demonstration. A rubric can be more useful than a percentage.
AAchievableRealistic for these learners in the time available.
Check prior knowledge, available support, resources, and time. A verb cannot tell you whether a task is realistic for your learners.
RRelevantServes the topic and the learners’ purpose.
Connect the work to the unit’s purpose and the learners’ needs. Why is this performance worth learning?
TTime-boundCan be reached and shown within the timeframe.
Decide when learners should be able to show it. A shared lesson or unit timeframe can supply this context; you need not repeat it in every sentence.
Where did SMART come from?
George T. Doran introduced the acronym in a 1981 management article. His terms were Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, and Time-related. Later adaptations use different words, including the version above. SMART did not originate in Bloom’s taxonomy.4
Doran treated it as a guide and cautioned against forcing every objective into numerical measures. For learning, a clear criterion can be qualitative: an argument using credible evidence, or a design meeting a brief.
Try the thinking, not just the labels.
Three quick checks. Choose an answer to see the reasoning. These practice choices stay on this page and disappear when you leave.
Why this matters beyond the taxonomy.
The value is in the decisions the framework helps you make: what to teach, what learners practice, and what counts as evidence.
Objective
Evaluate a restoration plan against criteria.
Practice
Weigh two plans and discuss the trade-offs.
Assessment
Recommend a plan and defend it with evidence.
A shared language for alignment
Biggs’s constructive alignment connects intended performances with teaching activities and assessment. Bloom’s can help describe those performances; alignment still depends on what learners actually do.5
A way to examine assessment and study habits
Crowe and colleagues developed the Blooming Biology Tool and used it in three collegiate settings to examine questions, adjust instruction, and help students work with more demanding study questions.6
A prompt for judgment, not a guarantee
These sources support thoughtful planning and describe applications. They do not establish that adding a Bloom verb or a SMART checklist by itself improves learning in every context. Look at learners’ work, accessibility, feedback, and progress as well.
Questions that come up in practice.
What are the six levels of Bloom’s revised taxonomy?
Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create. They describe cognitive processes: retrieving knowledge, making meaning, using procedures, examining relationships, making judgments, and producing something new.
What changed between the original and revised Bloom’s taxonomy?
The 1956 cognitive taxonomy used Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. The 2001 revision used verb labels, placed Create after Evaluate, and separated the knowledge dimension from the cognitive-process dimension.
Can a verb tell me the Bloom level of an objective?
A verb is a starting point, not a classifier. The content, conditions, familiarity of the task, and evidence expected from learners determine the cognitive demand. The same verb can appear in tasks at different levels.
Must every lesson reach Create?
No. Choose the processes that serve the learners and the purpose. Accurate recall and fluent use of a procedure can be important outcomes. The revised categories overlap; they are not six compulsory steps in every lesson.
Is SMART part of Bloom’s taxonomy?
No. Bloom’s taxonomy describes kinds of thinking and knowledge. SMART is a separate objective-writing aid, originating in George T. Doran’s 1981 management article. LOGEN uses Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Does an observable objective always need a percentage?
No. Evidence can be a justified interpretation, a design meeting constraints, a performance judged with a rubric, or a correct procedure. Use numerical thresholds when they have a defensible meaning, rather than adding an arbitrary percentage.
Go back to the original sources.
Start with Krathwohl’s overview for the revision, Doran’s article for SMART, and the applied research for how these ideas inform teaching. Publisher access can vary.
- 1Bloom et al. (1956)Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain.
The original handbook, edited by Benjamin S. Bloom; Longmans, Green. The history and categories are also discussed in Krathwohl’s overview below.
- 2Anderson & Krathwohl, eds. (2001)A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.
The revised handbook; Longman. Read alongside the accessible overview by its co-editor below.
- 3Krathwohl (2002)A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview.
Theory Into Practice, 41(4), 212–218. The changes, overlapping categories, and two-dimensional taxonomy table.
Article DOI (opens in a new tab) - 4Doran (1981)There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives.
Management Review, 70(11), 35–36. The original management article; linked scan hosted by EVAL.
Original article · PDF (opens in a new tab) - 5Biggs (1996)Enhancing teaching through constructive alignment.
Higher Education, 32, 347–364. Aligning intended performances, learning activities, and assessment.
Article DOI (opens in a new tab) - 6Crowe, Dirks & Wenderoth (2008)Biology in Bloom: Implementing Bloom’s Taxonomy to Enhance Student Learning in Biology.
CBE—Life Sciences Education, 7(4), 368–381. A discipline-specific tool for analyzing assessment and supporting study strategies.
Open article DOI (opens in a new tab) - 7Stanny (2016)Reevaluating Bloom’s Taxonomy: What Measurable Verbs Can and Cannot Say about Student Learning.
Education Sciences, 6(4), 37. An analysis of 30 published verb lists and the limits of verb-based classification.
Open article DOI (opens in a new tab)
Bring the thinking into your next lesson.
In LOGEN AI, describe your learners and topic, choose Bloom levels, and generate suggestions or write your own. Add and edit objectives one at a time. Mark the ones you want checked as ready, then run a separate AI review for SMART criteria, cognitive demand, coverage, and learner fit.
You decide what to keep and revise. AI feedback is a judgment to consider, not evidence that learning has happened.