The CC2013 Strawman and Bloom's taxonomy

12 acm Inroads 2012 June • Vol. 3 • No.2 The JoinT Task Force on compuTing curricula (2012) has produced the Strawman version of Computing Curriculum 2013. On page 32 of their report [1], the Joint Task Force describes learning outcomes as having three possible levels of mastery, “Knowledge”, “Application” and “Evaluation”. Most readers of this column will recognize those three terms as being the names of three levels from Bloom’s taxonomy. Most readers of this column have read at least one of the many secondary sources that describe Bloom’s taxonomy. Very few have also read the primary source [2]. Benjamin Bloom quipped that this primary source is “one of the most widely cited yet least read books in American education” [3, page 9]. Unfortunately, most secondary sources dilute the taxonomy to an extent that is homeopathic. In all areas of research, graduate students are warned to be cautious when using secondary sources. To anyone seeking a minimally useful understanding of the taxonomy, without reading the entire primary source, I recommend the second chapter of a book edited by Anderson and Sosniak [3]. In that chapter, the editors have provided their choice of the most crucial excerpts from the primary source [2]. The first few pages of that chapter describe the organizational and philosophical background to the taxonomy. Excerpts that describe each of the six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy begin on page 15, in the section entitled “Turning Plan into Action: The Big Picture”. I particularly recommend as useful reading the 11 pages from there to the bottom of page 25.