Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy in the Saudi EFL Classrooms

Bloom’s taxonomy was developed in the 1950’s and is still used today to categorize ways of learning and              thinking in a hierarchical structure. A revised model was developed in the 1990’s to better-fit educational practices of the 21st century. Teachers can employ the revised Bloom’s taxonomy in the Saudi EFL Classrooms to help plan effective instruction and challenge students to move from the most basic skills (remembering) to more complex learning which leads to higher order thinking (creating).

Bloom's six major categories were changed from noun to verb forms.

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy isn't about the tools or technologies rather it is about using these to facilitate    learning. Outcomes on rubrics are measured by competence of use and most importantly the quality of the process or product. For example. Bookmarking a resource is of no value if the resource is inappropriate, invalid, out of date or inaccurate. Bloom's Revised Taxonomy describes many traditional classroom practices, behaviors and actions, but does not account for the new processes and actions associated with Web 2.0 technologies, infowhelm (the exponential growth in information), increasing ubiquitous personal technologies or cloud computing. The learners have to think to learn by themselves.

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy lends itself to problem and project based learning where the student must work through the entire process of development and evaluation.

So, Bloom’s Taxonomy is very well evident in setting learning objectives in the Saudi EFL classrooms. It is necessary for teachers to use it in their classrooms. Because It  provides  an organizational  structure  that  gives  a  commonly understood  meaning  to objectives  classified  in  one of  its  categories,  thereby  enhancing  communication which can improve the students' critical thinking.

I  as a teacher will utilize Bloom’s Taxonomy to improve my instructions and my students’ achievement but first I want you to remember that

·         Blooms Taxonomy was originally created Benjamin Bloom for categorizing and classifying the levels of intellectual learning that commonly occur in the classroom setting.

So first :

1-      It is important that I do not just teach lower order thinking skills at the bottom of Blooms Taxonomy such as knowledge and comprehension, but also teach higher order thinking skills at the top of blooms taxonomy such as synthesis and evaluation. 

2-      When students are using the higher order thinking skills they are more likely to retain information, perform better on standardized tests, and most importantly, achieve the ultimate goal of becoming lifelong learners.