Renewed version of Blooms Taxonomy finds favour in current educational policy and practices

The most recent version is the updated Bloom's Taxonomy, which pertains to cognitive educational psychology that began in the 19th century. It features five cognitive levels or domains out of a total of six, which include knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

The six levels of the revised cognitive domains utilize action verbs to define them as the six Cognitive Process Dimensions: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.

An overview of AI describes these six action-verb defined cognitive dimensions as follows.

• Remember: Recalling facts, terms, and basic concepts.

• Understand: Explaining ideas or concepts to demonstrate comprehension.

• Apply: Utilizing acquired information to address problems in new contexts.

• Analyze: Decomposing information into parts to grasp relationships and causes.

• Evaluate: Forming judgments about information based on criteria and justifying opinions.

• Create: Generating new or original work by merging elements in a novel pattern.

Key differences from the original taxonomy that the updated version of Bloom's taxonomy alters the names of the top two levels from "Synthesis" and "Evaluation" to "Create" and "Evaluate," respectively, with "Create" being the highest level. The overview also notes that the action verbs render the cognitive dimensions more tangible and simpler to implement as competency or learning outcome statements in lesson design, planning, management, transactions, and assessment.

In India, with the NEP 2020, the Central Board of Secondary Education is set to implement a competency-based assessment. The CBSE's method for Outcome-Based Education (OBE) and Competency-Based Education (CBE) emphasizes skills like application, critical thinking, and understanding concepts, which are known as higher-order skills.

Consequently, CBSE is modifying its assessment techniques to include more continuous and regular evaluations that measure how effectively students are meeting their learning goals. This means using question types that require analysis, interpretation, and application. Additionally, the CBSE is looking into open-book exams as part of the transition to CBE in classrooms. The goal is to foster engaging and meaningful learning experiences, track each student's progress towards their learning objectives, and ensure that every child receives the necessary support.