Laurie Anello
EDU375
Article Summary
Benjamin Bloom. (1913-1999), By Elliot W. Eisner
Benjamin Bloom made many contributions to the field of education throughout his career. His ultimate goal was to understand people learn and think, and what contributes to recognizing learning potential. He helped educators and scholars understand the importance of recognizing potential by participating in many programs and developing literature which today acts as a guide for objective writing. During Bloom’s career, beginning in 1944 at the University of Chicago, he focused on cognitive taxonomy, mastery learning, privilege and performance, and institution building. Bloom was not only a teacher and a researcher, but also more importantly, an optimist.
Bloom began as a teacher at the University of Chicago. He was interested in researching questions that students ask and the different ways in which they could be answered. Instead of focusing on rote memorization, Bloom provided his college students with actual experiences in order for them to grasp a better understanding of the actual concepts. Bloom was always exploring education and the different possibilities for finding potential. Bloom focused on the processes that he had taken to arrive at a solution to help him understand his students and how they learned.
Bloom wanted to understand what his students were thinking or experiencing while they were being taught. This began his work with cognitive taxonomy. While working with his mentor Ralph W. Tyler at the University, he focused on organizing objectives based on their cognitive complexity. He wrote, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook 1, The Cognitive Domain in 1956. This taxonomy was designed so that the cognitive processes were ordered in six categories, each level up becoming more complex. After writing this, he wrote The Affective Domain as well. Bloom studied these taxonomies through his college students. He developed stimulated recall with his students and had them participate in think aloud techniques.
Along with developing higher level thinking, and understanding cognitive functions, Bloom focused on the environment and how it affected learning. As an optimist, Bloom did not like the distribution of grades, and comparing students based on numbers and letters. He believed in goal attainment and offering support and opportunities in order to recognize learning potential. He wanted to meet the needs of every individual student to help them reach their goals. Bloom felt he could do this by arranging the conditions of the environment. He felt that an important part of a teacher’s job is to help develop student abilities and offer support.
Bloom knew that teachers could predict student performance based on past years. He also knew that these predictions could be overcome through the use of effective teaching. He pushed for an optimistic approach and urged teachers to provide positive support for every student. In order for teachers to understand how to promote student potential, Bloom took a part in many organizations.
In 1971 Bloom took part in creating the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), and the International Seminar for Advanced Training in Curriculum Development. His purpose for these programs was for educators to realize that knowing only about student test scores was not enough to fully understand student performance. For evaluating, Bloom explained that educators needed to be aware of the time, resources and quality of teaching that play a key role in the performance of the students. He called curriculum development institution building.
Finally the last organization that he developed was the Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistical Analysis programme at the University of Chicago. With this program he prepared scholars to design evaluation practices that would be effective and useful for many different curriculums.
Overall, Benjamin Bloom contributed so much to the field of education. His hard work and dedication has provided many students and people with opportunities and support to learn and recognize their potential.
Eisner, W. Elliot. (2000). Benjamin Bloom. (1913-1999). UNESCO: International Bureau of Education.