How to make sense of mastery learning using Bloom’s Taxonomy, and what this means for planning, learning and assessment in your classroom

Mastery Learning as the Foundation

Bloom’s Taxonomy is concerned with mastery learning.

The whole taxonomy rests on this concept.

If we master something we become expert in it.

This expertise makes itself known through how we exercise our knowledge and understanding of the thing in question.

We can do so with a high level of skill, precision and accuracy.

Stevie Wonder is a master of the piano.

Lionel Messi has a mastery of football.

Dame Judi Dench is a masterful actor.

In each case, mastery gives the individual in question prowess in the field of which they are expert.

They make excellent judgements, adapt themselves to different situations with ease, can improvise highly effectively, can alter, change and modify things to suit their own interpretations, are able to make that which is difficult look simple, and can go beyond what exists to do things in a way that is resolutely their own – neither imitative nor mechanical but superior to those with whom they share, in this case, a profession.

Such expertise might be thought of as the pinnacle of mastery.

Yet, mastery can also be thought of as something less profound.

Maybe I learn a new word during the course of my day, use this word in the weeks that follow, check its meaning, try it out in different situations and then, a few months later, find myself well placed to use it accurately when speaking or writing.

I have developed mastery of the word.

I know what it means and understand when it is most appropriate to use it.

The word can be called on to my satisfaction.

Here we see two different senses of mastery learning.

The first involves becoming a master of an area to which we dedicate ourselves.

The second involves mastering something to which we have been exposed or about which we want to learn.

That mastery may evolve and develop over time, but a basic mastery can be seen through how we are able to manipulate the thing in question.

It is this second form of mastery with which we are mostly concerned in the classroom.

We will no doubt come across certain learners in our careers who seek (or exhibit) mastery of the first type, but these are rare.

The second form, in which mastery learning refers to one’s ability to fully know and understand a skill or piece of content, such that it can be used effectively and with ease, is something to which we can help all learners aim.

Bloom’s Taxonomy promotes this type of learning because, by moving up the levels of the taxonomy, any individual can become more knowledgeable, more skilled and develop a better understanding of that about which they are learning.

As a reminder, the taxonomy runs as follows:

Level 1: Knowledge
Level 2: Comprehension
Level 3: Application
Level 4: Analysis
Level 5: Synthesis
Level 6: Evaluation

(Subsequent research has suggested swapping the top two levels. Personally, I don’t think it makes much difference and it is perhaps contextual as to which is most challenging)

As a learner moves up the taxonomy, they gain increasing mastery over whatever they are learning.

Thus, when we are planning lessons or schemes of work, we can use the taxonomy to help us achieve our wider aim of maximising progress.

We can do this safe in the knowledge that the structure and application of the taxonomy in the context of teaching and learning echoes our aims.

In this sense, mastery learning can be thought of as contiguous with maximising progress.

If learners make great progress, they are likely to better master ideas and information.

If they better master ideas and information, it is likely that, in so doing, they will have increased their mastery.

A Framework for Teaching, Learning and Assessment

For all the reasons above, the taxonomy provides an excellent framework for teaching, learning and assessment.

That this is the case can be seen from the extent to which it underpins these practices in many parts of the world.

The taxonomy is inherently progressive.

By progressive I mean that the levels contain an increasing degree of challenge.

This means lessons and assessments in which the taxonomy is used can quickly and easily be made challenging for all learners.

On the flipside, if a teacher ignores the taxonomy when doing their planning, they may make life harder for themselves.

The taxonomy is also simple.

It can be applied across much of the curriculum and across almost all age-groups.

In the first case, we simply alter the content. In the second case, we alter the extent of what we are asking learners to do, as well as the content.

(The caveat here is that Bloom’s Taxonomy is a taxonomy of the cognitive domain. If you are teaching a practical subject, maths or modern foreign languages, things are different. Bloom’s may fit, it may fit in part, or it may not fit at all.)

To get a sense of the ubiquity of the taxonomy, look at the mark-schemes and assessment objectives provided by any examining body in almost any subject.

Invariably you will see the mark of Bloom’s Taxonomy, visible to a greater or lesser extent, but nearly always there, in the background, ordering and underpinning the process of assessment.

Subsequent Developments

The taxonomy is not immune from criticism.

None of this refutes the central argument the taxonomy makes, or the process of categorising and ordering cognitive processes that it entails.

However, there are three points worth considering.

First, some have argued the taxonomy is not, in fact, a properly constructed taxonomy.

This is because there is no systemic rationale of construction.

While this may be true, the criticism does not detract from the taxonomy’s efficacy, nor its usefulness in systematising educational objectives and providing educators with a clear lens through which to see teaching, learning and assessment.

The taxonomy was revised in 2000 by Anderson et al.

In this, the issue of whether it was properly constructed or not was addressed.

This also leads us to our second point.

In the revision, it was suggested that analysis, synthesis and evaluation should be seen side-by-side rather than in a hierarchy.

Personally, I do not find this adaptation particularly useful.

While it may provide a more systematic taxonomy, it reduces its power as a tool on which the teacher can call.

As to whether the top three levels should be seen in parallel, or whether, as some have argued, synthesis and evaluation should be swapped over, so that the former is at the peak of the taxonomy, I leave it to you to judge.

For me, the original formulation of the taxonomy is most useful.

We can use that while accepting that synthesis and evaluation may swap, depending on context, but that, regardless, they will always be most challenging.

Third and finally, many have argued that the taxonomy separates out processes which, in reality, do not exist independently of one another.

Thought, they say, is an inherently complex thing made up of disparate elements at any one time, meaning that it is too simplistic to say that the six levels can exist in separation.

I agree with this.

I am sure you agree with it as well.

Who wouldn’t?

Of course thought is complex and interwoven.

After all, each of us experiences thought and it is hard to argue that it neatly echoes the delineations of the taxonomy.

But such criticism rather misses the point.

The taxonomy is a practical tool for teachers.

By dividing up processes, ordering and systematising them, it makes the teacher’s life easier and gives them a powerful device through which to plan teaching, learning and assessments.

So, yes, the criticism is fair.

But, no, it shouldn’t cause us to cast the taxonomy aside.

Or change it in any way

For teaching is a practical business, and it is in the practical arena that the taxonomy finds its greatest use.

And for more on this, head over to the Bloom’s Taxonomy Knowledge Base, for lots of practical strategies and techniques.