A quick guide to Bloom’s taxonomy and why knowledge and creativity fuel each other

Bloom’s Taxonomy is not a triangle with ‘regurgitating facts’ at the bottom and ‘creativity’ at the top. What does it mean? Bloom’s taxonomy is a way of identifying different modes of learning. The significance of placing ‘remembering’ or ‘knowledge’ at the bottom is that this is the foundation on which all the others are built – it is the most important element, not ‘low level’. The other elements are also falsely represented as a hierarchy, as if ‘analysing’ is precursor to evaluating or creating. That is not true. They are each potentially independent modes of activity. Remembering that knowledge feeds into them all, however, is a good place to start with students who do not yet have much knowledge or cultural capital to draw on. What are the implications for teachers? Never teach in a way that relegates knowing things to the bottom of the pile, placing creativity and ‘synthesis’ at the top, as if you can do these things instead. The point is