Incorporating Bloom's Taxonomy in Nursing Curricula

Incorporating Bloom’s Taxonomy into nursing curricula has many benefits. Bloom’s Taxonomy helps nursing students move beyond mere memorization by making learning actionable and encouraging them to make higher-level thinking connections. Bloom’s Taxonomy is also the framework used to create and evaluate questions on the NCLEX® and Next Generation NCLEX® (NGN), so understanding how to use Bloom’s Taxonomy will help nursing students pass their licensing exams. Whether you’re looking for more ways to use Bloom’s Taxonomy in the classroom or want a better understanding of what Bloom’s Taxonomy is, here are some free Bloom’s Taxonomy resources created by nursing educators for nursing educators.

Bloom’s Taxonomy Chart for Nursing Education

Learn how using Bloom’s Taxonomy can help nursing students build foundational knowledge and, ultimately, pass the NGN.

How to Use Bloom’s Taxonomy in the Classroom

Foundational Material at the Heart of Remembering & Understanding

When looking at the first two sections of Bloom’s – Remember and Understand – we will recognize this as applying to textbook or foundational material. Remembering and Understanding-styled information can readily be found in traditional coursework, and students can use this type of information to create a solid and comprehensive foundation of knowledge from which to draw when moving to higher levels of thinking, such as Application. 

Application of Knowledge Leads to Higher-Level Thinking

Another easy way to help students understand how to transition their thinking is to change our language as educators. When reviewing material, such as basic patient signs and symptoms for various diseases, use that material as a “Call to Action.” This helps students to move beyond memorization by making learning actionable. 

For example, we teach that dyspnea is a sign and symptom of heart failure. But don’t stop there! Have the students ask themselves:

• What is dyspnea?
• What does it look like? 
• How do I assess it? 
• How do I treat it?  

By making learning actionable, we help the students to move beyond memorization and into Application. These exercises help to prepare them for real-world situations where they will have to quickly Analyze patient symptoms, Evaluate their responses to treatments, and ultimately Create conclusions about the next steps in patient health.

Applying Bloom’s Taxonomy in Testing

Another way we can apply Bloom’s is through testing. On the NGN, we find keywords such as: what is best, what is most important, and first and highest priority. When creating your own test items, using this type of critical-thinking verbiage will also help students to transition from Remembering to Application.

Incorporating Bloom’s Taxonomy Into Learning Objectives

We all use learning objectives to communicate what we want the students to get from their reading assignments or lectures. Re-writing objectives so that they follow a simple-to-concrete structure – like Bloom’s – will help students to start to understand how to better Understand, Apply, Analyze, and Evaluate the information as they build towards Creating their conclusions and key takeaways.

Once you have structured your learning objectives to follow Bloom’s Taxonomy, after each lecture or reading, ask students to work through those objectives and answer them as if they were test questions. Treat each lecture or assignment as an opportunity to encourage students to apply their skills and knowledge into actionable practice.

Helping students understand Bloom's framework will help them to transition their thinking earlier and more seamlessly. By incorporating Bloom’s Taxonomy into our classrooms as a systematic process, we help students to make these higher-level thinking connections early on, thus better preparing them for both the rigors of the NGN as well as the high-stakes world of real-life patients.

View our Next Generation NCLEX faculty resources.

View more of our recent blog posts.