Learning Theory, Bloom's Taxonomy that Saves

Indonesian Education

As long as we become educators, we will definitely ask: What is the purpose of education?
What are the goals of learning and teaching? Is it just memorizing the facts and formulas in the
textbook? or create students who will later be able to find solutions to problems that exist in
their society, in accordance with current developments?

As educators, we are able to answer with learning theories that have been put forward by
experts and compare them with personal experiences while in the classroom. The theory that in
my opinion helps educators to design curricula, lesson plans and tests in accordance with the
learning objectives they want to achieve and in detail was put forward by Benjamin Samuel
Bloom and friends at the American Psychological Association Conference in the 1950s. They
stated that from the evaluation of learning outcomes that were compiled, it was clear that
many questions were asked only to ask students to explain concepts alone.

Bloom stated that memorization is actually the lowest level of thinking ability (thinking
behaviors). There are still many higher levels that students should achieve so that the learning
process can produce students who are competent in their fields. Finally in 1956, Bloom,
Englehart, Furst, Hill and Krathwohl succeeded in introducing to the public a conceptual
framework of thinking abilities called Bloom's Taxonomy.

Bloom's taxonomy is a hierarchical structure that identifies skills from low to high levels. Of
course, to achieve higher goals, the lower levels must be met first. Within the framework of this
concept, Bloom's educational goals are divided into three domains/domains of intellectual
ability, namely cognitive, affective and psychomotor. The three domains are;
Cognitive Domain, which contains behaviors that emphasize intellectual aspects, such as
knowledge, understanding and thinking skills.
Affective Domain (Affective Domain), contains behaviors that emphasize aspects of feelings and
emotions, such as interests, attitudes, appreciation and ways of adapting.
Psychomotor Domain (Psychomotor Domain), contains behaviors that emphasize aspects of
motor skills such as handwriting, typing, swimming and operating machines.

Bloom's taxonomy underwent two changes, namely; proposed by Bloom himself and the
revised Taxonomy by Andreson and Kartwohl. Then for the Affective and Psychomotor Domains
we can pay attention to this pyramid which has been listed. In it there is an affective domain
which focuses on how we handle everything related to emotions, such as feelings, values,
appreciation, enthusiasm, motivation and attitudes. Meanwhile, for the psychomotor domain,
there is a model that focuses on physical movement, coordination, and everything related to
motor skills.

In my opinion, Bloom and his thoughts have many advantages in making breakthroughs in the
field of education:

Initially education focused more on memorizing material and now it focuses on skill abilities: I
remember very well the early 2000s, from elementary school to high school. As a student, I can
identify that many educators are still oriented towards conceptual application, namely in the
realm of remembering and are still Lower Order Thinking Skills. This is proven by the National
Examination which was still implemented at that time. I am grateful that at this time, as an
educator, I have been directed to evaluate students in the realm of High Order Thinking Skill.
We can also control and adjust learning objectives, learning activities and evaluation processes
more easily; As an educator, I myself prefer to read children's stories about their thinking
processes and real solutions in their lives. It does take time to prepare rubrics, check points,
read student essays. But that is our job as teachers.
Bloom's taxonomy can also be used in various subjects or across scientific disciplines:
The real proof is that at school we used interdisciplinary methods. Each educator for a different
subject can measure and provide learning activities that complement each other. Viewed from
all three domains.
Students are also given a lot of direction to develop higher-level critical and cognitive thinking.
Hopefully we as educators will rethink our goals as educators and can use existing learning
theories, especially Bloom's Taxonomy, to help prepare learning that brings changes to
students' thinking patterns and leads to lifelong understanding.