ROBERT MUGABE

SCHOOL OF
EDUCATION AND
CULTURE

NAME: DANGAREMBIZI LAURA

REG NUMBER: M226222

COURSE CODE: BEIE 222

COURSE: Gifted, Talented and Creative Education.

LEVEL:

PROGRAM:

QUESTION: Assess the applicability of Bloom’s Taxonomy in gifted, talented and creative
education provisions of Zimbabwe.

LECTURER: MUDITA

DUE DATE:

MARK:

COMMENT:

CONTACT/EMAIL: 0774394870/ iauradangarembizi78@gmail.com

Bloom’s Taxonomy is applicable in gifted, talented and creative education provisions of
Zimbabwe. Bloom’s Taxonomy is an effective lens through which to review a teaching
curriculum because it is a model that documents the entire learning process and depth of learning
outcomes, from ingesting facts to synthesizing facts to creating original work. Inasmuch, it is
widely adopted and effective framework upon which many educators rely for planning and
evaluating.

One way instructors can improve different abled learners learning outcomes as well as
assessment and teaching strategies is to view learners learning and curriculum through the lens of
Bloom’s Taxonomy (Delisle and Galbraith, 2002). This framework of cognitive levels was
named after educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom. Bloom’s Taxonomy was originally
developed by Bloom, Englehart, First, Hill and Krathwol developed in 1956 (Delisle and
Galbraith, 2002). The six major categories were knowledge, comprehension, application,
analysis, synthesis as well as evaluation. Bloom’s Taxonomy has been later presented in
hierarchical order later in 2001 from the lowest to highest levels that is; remember, understand,
apply, analyze, evaluate as well as create. Looking on the revised Bloom’s taxonomy cognitive
framework, the teachers should ask themselves that, can student easily recall course content, is
the student able to explain key concepts and ideas, is the student connect (compare and contrast)
various concepts, can the student appraise, argue and justify a point of view as well as is the
student able to produce original work from learned concepts? (Delisle and Galbraith, 2002).
Regarding to this, Bloom’s Taxonomy can be instrumental in gifted, talented and creative
education provisions of Zimbabwe because that framework of cognitive levels enables the
teacher to have full understanding of the nature of his or her learners.

Educators can use Bloom’s Taxonomy to encourage higher-order thinking in their students; this
is achieved by building up from lower-level cognitive levels in curriculum and lesson planning.
For example, in the case of a Language Arts lesson plan, students can first learn the definition of
a thesis sentence. Then they may be put into small groups to identify thesis sentences in various
writing examples (Dweck, 2010). In large discussion, they share these findings and justify their
choices. Breaking into small groups again, students might then read short excerpts and come up
with thesis statements that they then share with the large group. In large class discussion,
students can compare and contrast different thesis statements for the same excerpt and then come
up with their own statements for their individual assignments. This, can be expanded over the
length of a unit or entire course, but following the order of Bloom’s Taxonomy to further higher-
order thinking (Dweck, 2010). Checkpoints in the form of assessments can also ensure that
students reach milestones before proceeding to next steps. Large class discussion enables the
sharing of ideas between the gifted, moderate and non-gifted learners. Discussions allows
learners to be creative as they can come up with new ideas. In this regard, Boom’s Taxonomy
cognitive framework can be applied in gifted, talented and creative education provision of
Zimbabwe.

Boom’s Taxonomy cognitive framework is applicable in gifted, talented and creative education
provision of Zimbabwe because it enables the instructors to always keep the hierarchy in mind.
When selecting learning goals for the term, it’s important to remember that Bloom’s Taxonomy
follows a hierarchy, with the lowest level of cognition at the bottom (Edmondson, 2011).
Therefore, creating exam questions according to expected learning ability in relation to those
levels is crucial. For example, exams given toward the beginning of the term might consist only
of questions that apply to the Remembering level of Bloom’s, followed by questions that pertain
to Understanding and Applying (Edmondson, 2011). For example, teachers set a beginning of
term short exam in order to measure if their learners are still remembering all the content which
has been taught last term. Also, a teacher may also give end of lesson exercises to measure
learners’ ability to understand and apply the concepts. Exams are also usable for identifying
gifted, talented and creative learners. In this regard, Bloom’s Taxonomy is applicable in gifted,
talented and creative education provision of Zimbabwe.

In addition, Boom’s Taxonomy is applicable in gifted, talented and creative provision of

Zimbabwe since it signifies the importance of introducing exam items that explore higher levels
of cognition gradually. Once students have mastered the learning objectives tied to the lower
levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, educators can begin integrating questions from each of the higher
levels. As the term develops and students gain a stronger understanding of the material,
instructors can place less emphasis on the lower levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy in favor of the
higher levels (Franks and Dolan, 1982). Higher levels questions enable learners to reach the
maximum level of Bloom’s Taxonomy cognitive framework for instance the ability to evaluate
and create original work. Therefore, Bloom’s Taxonomy is applicable in gifted, talented and
creative education provision of Zimbabwe.

Bloom’s Taxonomy enables the learners to analyze assessment results and readjust course
objectives accordingly. After reviewing assessments, educators can determine which learning
objectives, in relation to Bloom’s Taxonomy, may need to be revisited. Exam Soft allows
educators to tag each exam item to the six levels of Bloom’s, as well as key course objectives, to
measure learning accordingly. By tagging exam items to key categories, instructors will receive
easily digestible reports to help identify specific areas of improvement and adjust the curriculum
to keep learners on the right track (Goleman and Senge, 2014). Furthermore, Grade scope is
helpful in upholding formative assessment. Using Bloom’s Taxonomy in assessments, as well as
other aspects of learning, is an effective way to support learning improvement and develop a
strong curriculum in gifted, talented and creative education provision of Zimbabwe.

Gifted, talented and creative learners are known as their curiosity usually arises when attention
becomes focused on a gap in one’s knowledge resulting in the feeling of deprivation labeled
curiosity. The curious individual is motivated to obtain the missing information to reduce the
feeling of deprivation (Neumeister, 2007). Gifted students are able to assimilate information so
quickly and to show mastery with greater ease than their peers. If curiosity represents the
knowledge that learners do not possess, then teachers must help then to acquire the requisite
skills needed to monitor their own knowledge as well as focus their inquiry on identifying areas
of cognitive deprivation and filling them with new knowledge and connections.

In line with the above paragraph, as described by Neumeister (2007), as information is acquired,
a qualitative shift of attention is likely to occur from a focus on what is known to one on what is
not known. Facilitating this focus and preparing gifted students to consistently examine their
gaps in knowledge are core affective components of reaching optimized potential. Simply asking
students to answer rote questions or to provide responses based on what they already know will
not stimulate curiosity. Instead, teachers can help gifted learners realize that curiosity should
drive their continued development and that feelings of deprivation from gaps in knowledge
should increase the more they learn rather than decrease or become eliminated entirely.
According to Bloom’s taxonomy those learners should be asked to utilize the upper three levels
which are analysis, synthesis and evaluation to facilitate them on acquiring new information.
Thus, Bloom’s Taxonomy is relevant in gifted, talented and creative education provisions of
Zimbabwe since it imparts teachers with skills on how to stimulate leaner’s curiosity.

For purposes of this taxonomy, only specific self-esteem will be considered as the affective
construct due to its potential to positively influence behavior as well as have a significantly
powerful effect on global self-esteem in gifted, talented and creative education provisions of
Zimbabwe (Rosenberg et al., 1995). This is of particular consideration for gifted students
because higher intelligence tends to cause elevated levels of global self-esteem, which may
inadvertently cause some gifted learners to either shun their weaknesses or to overestimate their
ability in specific areas of the curriculum or social-emotional development. Therefore, by
helping students find value in specific areas of potential talent, teachers of the gifted can help
support students’ ability to honor their efforts and growth in specific contexts over time, thus
solidifying specific self-esteem while simultaneously increasing global self-esteem, the
combination of which has both cognitive and affective advantages (Bloom cited in Rosenberg,
1995). Hence, Bloom’s ideas are useful in gifted, talented and creative education provisions of
Zimbabwe as it is indicated on this paragraph.

Basing on the information given in the main discussion, it is clear that, Bloom’s taxonomy can
be applied in gifted, talented and creative education provisions of Zimbabwe. As it has been
indicated, Bloom's Taxonomy is a framework for categorizing and organizing educational
objectives and skills which has since become widely used in educational settings. The taxonomy
is hierarchical, consisting of six levels that represent increasingly complex cognitive processes.
By using Bloom's Taxonomy, educators can design learning experiences and assessments that
progressively develop students' thinking skills from basic knowledge recall to higher-order
thinking and problem-solving abilities.
REFERENCES:

Delisle, J. R., and Galbraith, J. (2002). When gifted kids don't have all the answers: How to meet
their social and emotional needs. Free Spirit Publishing.

Dweck, C. S. (2010). Even geniuses work hard. Educational Leadership, 68(1), 16-20.

Edmondson, A. C. (2011). Strategies for learning from failure. Harvard Business Review, 89(4),

Franks, B. and Dolan, L. (1982). Affective characteristics of gifted children: Educational

implications. Gifted Child Quarterly, 26, 172-178. doi: 10.1177/001698628202600405

Goleman, D. and Senge, P. (2014). The triple focus: A new approach to education. Florence,
MA: More Than Sound, LLC.

Neumeister, K. S. (2007). Perfectionism in gifted students: An overview of current research.

Gifted Education International, 23(3), 254-263.

Rosenberg, M., Schooler, C., Schoenbach, C., and Rosenberg, F. (1995). Global self-esteem and
specific self-esteem: Different concepts, different outcomes. American Sociological Review, 141-
156. Retrieved January 17, 2016 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2096350