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PBL can be a vital tool for those struggling to learn through traditional means. Especially students that may be struggling with academic English. PBL gives students the opportunity to explore their world with their hands and using the tools that they already have, helping them to understand larger concepts, even when language is a barrier.

Further, PBL can help to integrate students with special needs into the mainstream classroom and allow them to work with peers in a way that may not otherwise be possible. Students can help create their part of the project using whichever skills are strongest for them, leading to a sense of accomplishment and inclusion.

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As previously stated, direct instruction--while interesting for the teacher--is not usually an effective way of disseminating information to school-aged children. They need more active engagement with material. PBL is a vehicle for that engagement.

As shown in the diagram of Bloom's Taxonomy, "Applying" is at the apex of the pyramid, meaning it is the most important and most challenging part of learning. Its one thing to memorize a fact, its another to put it into action. For example, a student can memorize the quadratic equation, but that doesn't mean they could solve a math problem using it. With PBL, students are forced to apply the knowledge they have learned, both showing the instructor that they understand and helping to concretely cement the information into their long-term memory.

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Project Based Learning, or PBL, is a way to get students engaged in content by allowing them to work hands-on with a project to aid their learning and retention.

PBL allows students to move away from the 'boring' direct instruction of yesteryear and into the exciting and engaging world of projects. Further, PBL helps prepare students for their futures, for jobs which use projects like presentations, collaborative work, critical thinking and communication.

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Project Based Learning is an excellent way to get students of all abilities together to create original work.  Students work collaboratively, which helps them to communicate better and makes them better adjusted to function in the real world.

UDL is a natural companion to PBL as students have the opportunity to express their knowledge in a number of ways and research the sources that make the most sense to them, whether it be written, multimedia or even original interviews.

Most kids can memorize anything for a short period of time, but learning something for the long-term and being able to use that information outside of the classroom is the real goal. Putting kids to work as early as possible, having them use their creativity, knowledge and communication skills is invaluable.

With PBL as a building block of the classroom, the instructor works as a guide to learning rather than a disseminator of information, empowering students to have a stronger sense of agency and control over their education and learning objectives.

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Creating original work is at the apex of Bloom's pyramid. PBL puts this into action.

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Cite this guide: Armstrong, P. (2010). Bloom's Taxonomy. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/.

Background Information | The Original Taxonomy | The Revised Taxonomy | Why Use Bloom's Taxonomy? | Further Information

The above graphic is released under a Creative Commons Attribution license. You're free to share, reproduce, or otherwise use it, as long as you attribute it to the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. For a higher resolution version, visit our Flickr account and look for the "Download this photo" icon.

Background Information

In 1956, Benjamin Bloom with collaborators Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl published a framework for categorizing educational goals: Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Familiarly known as Bloom's Taxonomy, this framework has been applied by generations of K-12 teachers and college instructors in their teaching.

The framework elaborated by Bloom and his collaborators consisted of six major categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. The categories after Knowledge were presented as "skills and abilities," with the understanding that knowledge was the necessary precondition for putting these skills and abilities into practice.

While each category contained subcategories, all lying along a continuum from simple to complex and concrete to abstract, the taxonomy is popularly remembered according to the six main categories.

The Original Taxonomy (1956)

Here are the authors' brief explanations of these main categories in from the appendix of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives ( Handbook One, pp. 201-207):

Knowledge "involves the recall of specifics and universals, the recall of methods and processes, or the recall of a pattern, structure, or setting."

Comprehension "refers to a type of understanding or apprehension such that the individual knows what is being communicated and can make use of the material or idea being communicated without necessarily relating it to other material or seeing its fullest implications."

Application refers to the "use of abstractions in particular and concrete situations."

Analysis represents the "breakdown of a communication into its constituent elements or parts such that the relative hierarchy of ideas is made clear and/or the relations between ideas expressed are made explicit."

Synthesis involves the "putting together of elements and parts so as to form a whole."

Evaluation engenders "judgments about the value of material and methods for given purposes."

The 1984 edition of Handbook One is available in the CFT Library in Calhoun 116. See its ACORN record for call number and availability.

Barbara Gross Davis, in the "Asking Questions" chapter of Tools for Teaching, also provides examples of questions corresponding to the six categories. This chapter is not available in the online version of the book, but Tools for Teaching is available in the CFT Library. See its ACORN record for call number and availability.

The Revised Taxonomy (2001)

A group of cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists published in 2001 a revision of Bloom's Taxonomy with the title A Taxonomy for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. This title draws attention away from the somewhat static notion of "educational objectives" (in Bloom's original title) and points to a more dynamic conception of classification.

The authors of the revised taxonomy underscore this dynamism, using verbs and gerunds to label their categories and subcategories (rather than the nouns of the original taxonomy). These "action words" describe the cognitive processes by which thinkers encounter and work with knowledge:

Remember

Understand

Interpreting

Exemplifying

Classifying

Summarizing

Inferring

Comparing

Explaining

Apply

Analyze

Differentiating

Organizing

Attributing

Evaluate

Create

In the revised taxonomy, knowledge is at the basis of these six cognitive processes, but its authors created a separate taxonomy of the types of knowledge used in cognition:

Factual Knowledge

Knowledge of terminology

Knowledge of specific details and elements

Conceptual Knowledge

Knowledge of classifications and categories

Knowledge of principles and generalizations

Knowledge of theories, models, and structures

Procedural Knowledge

Knowledge of subject-specific skills and algorithms

Knowledge of subject-specific techniques and methods

Knowledge of criteria for determining when to use appropriate procedures

Metacognitive Knowledge

Strategic Knowledge

Knowledge about cognitive tasks, including appropriate contextual and conditional knowledge

Self-knowledge

Mary Forehand from the University of Georgia provides a guide to the revised version giving a brief summary of the revised taxonomy and a helpful table of the six cognitive processes and four types of knowledge.

Why Use Bloom's Taxonomy?

The authors of the revised taxonomy suggest a multi-layered answer to this question, to which the author of this teaching guide has added some clarifying points:

1. Objectives (learning goals) are important to establish in a pedagogical interchange so that teachers and students alike understand the purpose of that interchange.

2. Organizing objectives helps to clarify objectives for themselves and for students.

3. Having an organized set of objectives helps teachers to:

"plan and deliver appropriate instruction";

"design valid assessment tasks and strategies";and

"ensure that instruction and assessment are aligned with the objectives."

Citations are from A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.

Further Information

Section III of A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, entitled "The Taxonomy in Use," provides over 150 pages of examples of applications of the taxonomy. Although these examples are from the K-12 setting, they are easily adaptable to the university setting.

Section IV, "The Taxonomy in Perspective," provides information about 19 alternative frameworks to Bloom's Taxonomy, and discusses the relationship of these alternative frameworks to the revised Bloom's Taxonomy.

This teaching guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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by Patricia Armstrong Print Version Cite this guide: Armstrong, P. (2010). Bloom's Taxonomy. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/. Background Information | The Original Taxonomy | The Revised Taxonomy | Why Use Bloom's Taxonomy? | Further Information The above graphic is released under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Project Based Learning and Universal Design for Learning

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Helping students with disabilities get the most out of mainstream classrooms with PBL. What is good for one is good for all.

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Project-based learning is an excellent way to differentiate instruction in a full inclusion classroom especially when that class includes students of widely different abilities, from the cognitively or developmental disabled to the gifted children. Project-based learning is also excellent in resource rooms or self-contained classrooms with either typically developing partners or with sufficient support or accommodations.

In project based learning, either you, or your students, devise projects that will support content in a way that will challenge students to go deeper or further. Examples:

Science: Create a model of a concept, perhaps insects, and label each part.

Reading: Create a television commercial or a web page to promote a book, one you have read together or one that the group has read in a literary circle.

Social Studies: Create a play, a power point presentation, or display for a State (as in Michigan,) a country, a political system (socialism, capitalism, republic, etc.) or a political point of view.

Math: Plan a trip to a preferred spot (Paris, Tokyo) and create a budget for hotels, flights, meals, etc.

In each case the project may support any number of educational objectives:

Reinforce content retention:

Project learning has proven, in research, to improve concept retention in a range of students.

Deepen understanding:

When students are asked to use content knowledge, they are driven to use higher level thinking skills (Blooms Taxonomy) such as Evaluate or Create.

Multi-sensory instruction:

Students, not just students with disabilities, all come with different learning styles. Some are strongly visual learners, some are auditory. Some are kinetic, and learn best when they can move. Many children benefit from sensory input, and students who are ADHD or Dyslexic benefit from being able to move as they process information.

Teaches skills in cooperation and collaboration:

Future jobs will require not only higher levels of training and technical skills, but also the ability to work collaboratively in groups. Groups work well when they are chosen by both the teacher and the students: some groups could be affinity based, others could be cross ability, and some could be "friendship" based.

Alternate means of assessing students' progress:

Using a rubric to lay out standards can put students of varying abilities on a level playing field.

Student engagement at its best:

When students are excited about what they are doing in school, they will behave better, participate more fully and benefit the most.

Project based learning is a powerful tool for the inclusive classroom. Even if a student or students spend part of their day in a resource or self-contained classroom, the time they spend in project based collaboration will be time when typically developing peers will model both good classroom and academic behavior. Projects can enable gifted students to push their academic and intellectual limits. Projects are acceptable across abilities, when they meet the criterion established in a rubric.

Project based learning also works well with small groups of students.

Pictured above is the scale model of the solar system one of my students with Autism created with me: We figured out the scale together, measured the size of the planets, and measured the distances between the planets. He now knows the order of the planets, the difference between terrestrial and gaseous planets and can tell you why most planets are uninhabitable.

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Project Based Learning for Special Education

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Project-based learning is an excellent way to differentiate instruction in a full inclusion classroom especially when that class includes students of widely different abilities, from the cognitively or developmental disabled to the gifted children. Project-based learning is also excellent in resource rooms or self-contained classrooms with either typically developing partners or with sufficient support or accommodations.

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PBL helps enrich the experiences and vocabulary of ELLs, as well as helping them communicate with native speakers.

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Teaching Tools | Resources for Teachers from Scholastic

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. How does Deeper Learning happen in science with students who are new to English?

2. In what ways do students and teachers both leverage students' native languages as an asset for learning?

3. How does project-based learning lead to deep and integrated learning of language and content?

School Details

Flushing International High School
144-80 BARCLAY AVE
FLUSHING NY 11355

Data Provided By:

Teachers

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Supporting ELLs Through Project-Based Learning

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Jordan Wolf, a science teacher at Flushing International High School, describes how he designs projects to meet the content and language needs of his students. Jordan talks about how he simultaneously develops content and language skills through small group work, hands-on activities, and heterogeneous group work.

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Outside Experts Boost Project Authenticity | Edutopia

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Students are deeply motivated when they review their physics work with professionals in the field.

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Impact on students

PBL blends content mastery, meaningful work, and personal connection to create powerful learning experiences, in terms of both academic achievement and students' personal growth.

PBL can be transformative for students, especially those furthest from educational opportunity. Now more than ever, we need young people who are ready, willing, and able to tackle the challenges of their lives and the world they will inherit - and nothing prepares them better than Project Based Learning.

Here are just some of the ways that PBL transforms students' educational experiences:

- Engaged hearts and minds

Students actively engage with PBL projects that provide real-world relevance for learning. Students can solve problems that are important to them and their communities.

- Deeper learning

PBL leads to deeper understanding and greater retention of content knowledge. Students are better able to apply what they know to new situations.

- Exposure to adults and careers

Students interact with adults, businesses and organizations, and their community, and can develop career interests.

- A sense of purpose

A great project can be transformative for students. Seeing a real-world impact gives them a sense of agency and purpose.

- Success skills

Students gain skills valuable in today's workplace and in life, such as how to take initiative, work responsibly, solve problems, collaborate in teams, and communicate ideas.

- Rewarding teacher relationships

Teachers work closely with active, engaged students doing meaningful work, and share in the rediscovered joy of learning.

- Creativity and technology

Students enjoy using a spectrum of technology tools from research and collaboration through product creation and presentation.
See Stories of PBL Success

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We believe Project Based Learning is transformative, providing students with real-world challenges and meaningful experiences that lead to deep and long lasting learning.

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Useful information on PBL and its use and benefits in the Classroom

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PBL and UDL for Development of Content Area Literacy for English Speakers, ELLs, SELLs, LLs and Students with Special Needs

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PBL and UDL for Development of Content Area Literacy for English Speakers, ELLs, SELLs, LLs and Students with Special Needs

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What are the benefits to using PBL in the secondary classroom?

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How does PBL teach through critical thinking, collaboration and communication?

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This simple video makes the essential elements of PBL come alive and brings to light the 21st Century competencies (collaboration, communication, critical thinking) that will enable K-12 students to be college- and work-ready as well as effective members of their communities. It helps introduce Project Based Learning to educators, parents and community members who are new to PBL, by giving them a simple starting point for further discussion.

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This simple video makes the essential elements of PBL come alive and brings to light the 21st Century competencies (collaboration, communication, critical thinking) that will enable K-12 students to be college- and work-ready as well as effective members of their communities.

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Use down time to evaluate projects used in the previous year and make adjustments when needed.

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It's summer, which is a time for those of us who have a summer holiday to take care of ourselves. But if you do have some energy to reflect on a project-based learning (PBL) project or to do some planning, here are some manageable ideas to consider for revising what you've done in the past without creating too much new work.

This process should not be as taxing as planning a full project-instead it's a way to look at PBL in your classroom very broadly to assess and map out your next steps.

Summer PBL Planning

Keep, adjust, or trash: Looking over your projects, make the important and yet time-saving decision about whether to keep the project as is, make some small adjustments, or cut it from your schedule.

Sometimes a project we design is a hit-students love it and create buzz for future students, who look forward to "that project" in our class. Other times, a project is pretty good and just needs some adjustments. But it is completely OK throw a project away, whether because it was a complete flop or just seemed to lose its luster due to time and changing student interests or for some other reason.

Make decisions about what to keep, modify, or drop first in your planning so you know where you can best spend the rest of your summer work time.

Map out the projects: After you've curated projects that are working and identified needed revisions, map them out to see where they fell in the previous school year and then consider whether any tweaks to that schedule are needed.

Sometimes a project is so engaging that it might best be used at a time in the school year when engagement is low. We all have those lulls. If you have the flexibility, move projects around to keep momentum. Also, look for breaks from PBL-times when projects don't fit or when students might benefit from another way to learn important content and skills.

You might also consider using projects that are limited in terms of time and scope at the beginning of the year to build students' stamina for PBL.

Identify opportunities for new projects: After you've created your year map for existing projects, look for gaps in the schedule or opportunities for a new project. Depending on your available time and energy, you might try to plan two new projects, but even one new project is powerful and worth the effort to plan.

Maybe you'll add a unit that's challenging in order to engage students. Or if you decided to drop a project you may have a gap in the calendar that you'll seek to fill with a replacement. You don't need to plan a full project right now-it's enough to identify where you want to spend some time in the school year planning for that new project.

Set later planning time: If you're like me, you need to carve out time to get planning done. In addition to my normal meetings and tasks, I schedule time for planning, thinking, and designing. Do this for those projects that need revision as well as any new project you want to design.

I recommend setting aside time for each project individually, rather than trying to do them all in one sitting. You might set aside 30 minutes for a project revision, or maybe two hours with colleagues to start designing a new project when you return to school. For now, you don't need to do the planning itself-just set a clear goal and intention to revise and plan later.

Spend some time online: Instead of starting from scratch, spend some time perusing project libraries like the ones at High Tech High or the Buck Institute for Education. Watch videos of high-quality PBL or look for a post about a PBL topic here at Edutopia. Find student handouts or teacher tools to use later.

There are many great ideas out there that can serve as worthy and not time-consuming professional learning in the summer. Set aside a specific amount of time for this, to ensure that you get quality learning that's manageable during your holiday.

Sleep on it: Now it's time to walk away. You've done great work and put in some thinking-it's a good idea to leave your ideas for later, when the school year is about to start. You'll come back feeling refreshed and with fresh eyes ready to plan some great PBL experiences for your students.

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It's summer, which is a time for those of us who have a summer holiday to take care of ourselves. But if you do have some energy to reflect on a project-based learning (PBL) project or to do some planning, here are some manageable ideas to consider for revising what you've done in the past without creating too much new work.

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The following articles and videos explain the characteristics of PBL

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The five E's, engage, explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate, are a road map to effective PBL Planning.

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Taji Allen-Sanchez, a sixth- and seventh-grade science teacher at San Francisco's Aptos Middle School, is one of a growing number of teachers who believe that traditional methods of teaching aren't preparing students for life beyond school. Lectures and direct instruction can be used to convey information to students, but they don't enhance skills like teamwork, problem solving, and curiosity that employers are increasingly looking for.

"If you just give students answers, they're not going to understand [the science]," he explains. "Really, any kid can memorize information, but can they apply it to an actual real-world application?"

A 2013 survey of over 700 business leaders bears out Allen-Sanchez's point: Half of the respondents reported that many job applicants who were technically proficient lacked the communication, decision-making, and problem-solving skills necessary to do the jobs they applied for. Far too many college graduates touted high grades and test scores, but lacked key skills to be successful in the workplace.

"It's not a matter of technical skill," explained one employer in the survey, "but of knowing how to think."

New Research Shows the Power of PBL

In an attempt to foster those necessary skills, Allen-Sanchez uses a combination of project-based learning (PBL) and performance assessments to encourage his students to gain a deeper understanding of science. The curriculum he uses came out of a Stanford project looking at how PBL, paired with performance assessments, can boost student learning. The results so far have been promising: The three-year project revealed significant growth in state standardized English language arts (ELA) and math tests for students in the program. Significantly, teachers also reported seeing higher rates of participation and engagement for their students.

The program's focus on academic discourse was especially helpful for English language learners, who outperformed their peers on the state's measure of language proficiency.

Research shows that by organizing learning around meaningful goals, PBL can be an effective way to cultivate a "need to know" attitude in students-students are motivated to deepen their understanding in order to solve a problem that is meaningful to them. Concepts are better understood when students see a need for their use because that need encourages them to apply what they're learning to relevant situations, leading to a better sense of understanding.

In schools participating in the study, students took an active role in their classrooms, asking questions, solving problems, conducting experiments, and participating in group discussions. The students felt that their assignments were more interesting, challenging, worthwhile, and enjoyable than did students in classrooms with a traditional science curriculum. Researchers also observed higher rates of students staying on task and paying close attention to the teacher and their peers.

Redefining How Students Learn

Project-based learning can be a catalyst for transforming science learning, helping students move from asking "what?" to also asking "why?" and "how?" In a traditional classroom, students often focus on memorizing facts to pass a test. At Aptos Middle School and other schools across San Francisco, PBL is being used to encourage scientific inquiry, putting students in the shoes of scientists applying authentic reasoning practices-such as experimentation and trial and error-in the classroom. While students still learn facts, they also learn to apply those facts in open-ended projects that they help design.

This transformation is driven by the 5E model, which eschews a traditional "scope and sequence" approach in which students progress along a fixed path of concepts and skills throughout the school year. Instead, instruction is organized around five phases:

Engage: Students' interest is piqued with novel ideas.

Explore: Hands-on activities deepen understanding.

Explain: Students describe ideas in their own words.

Elaborate: Ideas are applied to a broader context.

Evaluate: Students provide a rich picture of their understanding.

Allen-Sanchez explains that this model "really pushes kids to take an experience, really get immersed in it, learn about it through articles, and conversation, and discussion, and then get into more of it through the Elaborate by pushing what they already know to give more answers."

Students in Allen-Sanchez's science classes do more than just recite correct answers-they develop projects that utilize the 5Es. For example, students may work in groups to solve real-life engineering challenges such as working with a restaurant to design an energy-efficient kitchen. These students learn STEM concepts like the impact that windows and doorways have on thermal insulation, and they apply those concepts in complex situations: working with clients, managing projects, and executing the design cycle of prototyping, testing, and revising solutions to solve problems.

"We knew that we wanted to create a science environment in our classrooms that would disrupt the way that it had become: a course in which facts were learned and memorized," said Jim Ryan, the former STEM executive director for the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD).

Student Group Work

Despite the importance of team problem-solving in today's workplaces, only 8 percent of students could meet the demands of a highly collaborative environment, while 28 percent would struggle because they have only basic levels of important skills. Schools largely aren't addressing this skills mismatch-highlighting the need for more opportunities for students to work together to solve the complex problems that do foster the necessary skills.

At the beginning of every school year, teachers in SFUSD emphasize the need for students to work together, not just to complete challenging projects but also to help change beliefs and stereotypes about science identity.

"We recognize that students walk in the door of this classroom with issues of status behind them, that they recognize themselves as being a science person or a non-science person," said Ryan. "It's through student discourse and group work that they will start to dispel those beliefs about not only themselves but about their peers, and recognize that each of those students is bringing an aspect of smarts into the problem that they're trying to solve around science."

Throughout the year, teachers use group work to address the myth that scientists work in isolation. For Eric Lewis, the district's science content specialist, science "requires lots of people with lots of different specializations to work together to explain an idea and to come up with solutions for the big problems that we have today."

Teachers as Designers

To improve student learning, start with teachers-that's the philosophy driving project-based learning in SFUSD. In a landmark study, John Hattie found that teachers account for 30 percent of the variance in student achievement, beating other factors like quality of curriculum, class size, and school funding. So after Stanford developed the new science curriculum (which can be downloaded for free), SFUSD educators worked with the researchers to improve it, playing a key role as co-designers.

"In developing this curriculum, it was absolutely critical that it was a true partnership. One, not only between Stanford and San Francisco, but between teachers, designers, administrators, etc.," said Nicole Holthuis, a Stanford researcher and one of the creators of the curriculum. Teachers took the curriculum into their classrooms to test out and then gave each other feedback on what worked and what didn't.

The partnership seems to be effective: Lewis says that with the 5E model and PBL, "We're seeing more students getting their hands wet. We're seeing more students contribute ideas. We're seeing more students participate in many different ways."

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Boosting Student Engagement Through Project-Based Learning

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Taji Allen-Sanchez, a sixth- and seventh-grade science teacher at San Francisco's Aptos Middle School, is one of a growing number of teachers who believe that traditional methods of teaching aren't preparing students for life beyond school.