Bloom’s taxonomy is a system of learning objectives that are classified from simple to complex. In practice, it serves as a navigator: it provides educators and facilitators with a convenient way to organize individual lessons and entire programs. Teachers can find the appropriate objectives and assessment tools for each stage of learning (Churches, n.d.). The taxonomy represented a clear hierarchy of learning goals and provided a framework for curriculum and educational outcomes.
In the taxonomy of goals, cognitive activities include the following categories: knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. It arranges thinking skills in a hierarchy from simple to more complex (Churches, n.d.). Low-order thinking includes knowledge and understanding, and it is these processes that are most widely represented in the learning process: students acquire knowledge and reproduce it. Bloom’s taxonomy is significant to academic writing because it uses comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (Churches, n.d.). Accordingly, a person can perceive and analyze the matrix and then draw their own scholarly conclusions.
Information should be synthesized during the academic writing process. The first part of the process is knowledge, a type of category that involves remembering information. The comprehension variety consists in transforming data into a more understandable form. The application category involves applying or using the information to solve a problem. The application implies combining separate components to produce a solution (Churches, n.d.). The analysis level emphasizes how to explain how different parts of a complex process or object function together to achieve a particular outcome. Synthesis denotes the creative joining of elements to form a new and unique unity. The measurement category involves making decisions about controversial issues and justifying those decisions with reasonable arguments (Churches, n.d.). Thus, critical thinking is part of every stage of academic writing.
It is important to note that critical thinking is essential for academic writing. The article considers Bloom’s taxonomy as the basis for teaching mindfulness using secondary research methods (Nentl & Zietlow, 2008). At the same time, the article indicates the experience of teachers who suggested that students not only use Internet searches for materials but also analyze and synthesize secondary studies. Thus, using such a method will permit students to expend information from found sources and synthesize and process it in accordance with previous knowledge (Nentl & Zietlow, 2008). Accordingly, such activities contribute to the process of critical thinking that promotes proficiency and academic writing. Moreover, completing all phases of Bloom’s taxonomy allows students to critically evaluate their skills and the materials they have already produced (Nentl &Zietlow, 2008). In this way, they learn to think critically and can go beyond their research objectives if necessary; such surrender is beneficial during scientific discoveries and projects.
The article mentions the need to change approaches to research and pay more attention to the collection of valid literature on its analysis. Therefore, the author suggests developing critical thinking in different courses to ensure a constant grace of thought in written papers (Nentl & Zietlow, 2008). Adaptation of such suggestions will allow students to process large amounts of information quickly and move to higher levels of thinking; as described in Bloom’s taxonomy, analytical complexity is rapidly expanding (Nentl &Zietlow, 2008). As business students overcome the learning obstacle, they begin to propose their own scholarly opinions and outline them.
References
Churches, A. (n.d). Bloom’s digital taxonomy. Educational Origami.
Nentl, N. & Zietlow, R. (2008. Using Bloom’s taxonomy to teach critical thinking skills to business students. College and Undergraduate Libraries, 15(1-2), 159-172.