Benjamin Bloom – a Psychological Review, Essay Example

“What Bloom had to offer his students was a model of an inquiring scholar”

The below essay is attempting to review the personality traits and educational approaches of Benjamin Bloom, based on the memoir received. The main findings would be detailed alongside the relevant references from the text.

Personality Traits

The fact that a photograph of Bloom’s mentor, Ralph W. Tyler is placed in a prominent place on the wall of his office indicates that he himself received inspiration from others. He believed that educators’ approach determined the outcome of learning.

Inspiration

Bloom liked the process of figuring things out more than the results, and helped many students becoming able to do the same. He provided encouragement to students and provided them with immediate feedback on their learning and tried not to compare different people’s performance.

Cognitive Taxonomy and Education

One of the main works of Bloom is “Taxonomy of educational objectives: Handbook 1, the cognitive domain”, published in 1956. This work was based on the idea that cognitive processes have six different levels. He also concluded that cognitive processes had different hierarchies attached to them. He also studied the cognitive behaviour from an educational point of view, emphasizing the importance of the first four years in children’s development. The introduction of goal attainment to replace comparing students’ performance was revolutionary. Bloom also concluded that students’ future performance can be predicted by their previous attainment. This method is still used today at universities during the place allocation process.

He introduced the phrase “mastery learning”, to determine individual goals and attainment levels, available for all, not only the privileged. He did not conclude the research just for proving his thesis, but to improve the educational system in the United States. In that sense, Benjamin Bloom was a pragmatic scholar, still inspiring former students and educational experts.

References:

Eisner, E. (2000) Benjamin Bloom. Prospects: the quarterly review of comparative education, vol. XXX, no. 3, September 2000, UNESCO