Technology and Bloom’s Taxonomy: Synthesis
February 5, 2007
Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of learning domains, originally developed in 1956, is one of the most well-known and widely-used schemas of educational objectives. Though three distinct schemas were originally created, the one dealing with the cognitive domain remains the most important and most applied.
The fifth category in Bloom’s Taxonomy, Synthesis, is the focus of the February newsletter. Synthesis has to do with an individual’s ability to integrate, or combine, their experiences and knowledge in order to apply them in unique and creative ways to novel situations. For instance, an example of the Synthesis category would find a student planning and implementing an irrigation system in an area that previously did not have one, designing a curriculum to meet the diverse needs of a student body, or combining chemical compounds to produce a desired result.
Many technologies can assist you with enabling students to develop their abilities in the Synthesis domain:
- MyWPI Groups and Interwise have a variety of communication tools that enable project groups to collaborate virtually in order to share their findings, ideas, and materials. Such marshalling of resources, both physical and psychological, aids in the process of synthesis.
- The use of digital video cameras as a means of capturing dramatic representations and role-playing provides students with a means of dynamically demonstrating their learning in a way that requires foresight, planning, preparation, and the integration of ideas, environment, and interaction.
- Using applications such as Adobe Photoshop and Camtasia Studio enables students to creatively design and weave together images, text, audio, and video into a product that represents a new perspective or innovation. Other applications, such as Flash, may be used to create high-quality interactive simulations that may be leveraged as instructional tools.
- Bloom, B.S., Engelhart, M.D., Furst, E.J., Hill, W.H., & Krathwohl, D.R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: Handbook I, cognitive domain. New York: Longman.