Table 1.

Side-by-side comparison of three analytical frameworks for elaborating facets or levels of understanding: Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives (Bloom, 1956), Wiggins and McTighe's facets of understanding (Wiggins and McTighe, 1998), and Fink's taxonomy of significant learning (Fink, 2003)

Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectivesa	Facets of understandingb	Taxonomy of significant learningc
Knowledge—recalling learned information	Explain—provide sophisticated and apt explanations and theories that provide knowledgeable and justified accounts of phenomena, facts, and data	Foundational knowledge—the facts, terms, formulas, concepts, principles, etc. that one understands and remembers
Comprehension—explaining the meaning of information	Interpret—interpretations, narratives, and translations that provide meaning; make subjects personal or accessible through images, anecdotes, analogies, and models	Application—using critical, creative, and practical (decision-making, problem-solving) skills
Application—applying what one knows to novel, concrete situations	Apply—ability to use and adapt what one knows to new situations and in various contexts	Integration—making connections among ideas, subjects, and people
Analysis—breaking down a whole into its component parts and explaining how each part contributes to the whole	Have perspective—critical and insightful points of view; see the big picture	Human dimensions—learning about and changing one's self; interacting with others
Synthesis—assembling components to form a new and integrated whole	Empathize—ability to get inside another's feelings and perspectives; use prior indirect experience to perceive sensitively	Caring—identifying and changing one's feelings, values, and interests
Evaluation—using evidence to make judgments about the relative merits of ideas and materials	Have self-knowledge—perceive how one's patterns or thought and action shape and impede one's own understanding	Learning how to learn—becoming a better, self-directed learner; learning to ask and answer questions

^a The cognitive levels in Bloom's taxonomy are listed in ascending order (from top to bottom) of cognitive difficulty.

^b Descriptors reproduced and/or paraphrased from Wiggins and McTighe (1998).

^c Descriptors reproduced and/or paraphrased from Fink (2003).