The Marzano Taxonomy is a model for classifying learning objectives, developed by educator Robert Marzano. This taxonomy is divided into three domains: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor, and aims to help educators plan and evaluate the teaching-learning process more effectively. Marzano's taxonomy helps teachers identify and develop specific skills in students, promoting more targeted and efficient teaching. It is an important tool for improving the quality of education and ensuring the comprehensive development of students.
Main goals of taxonomy: to classify, organize and identify biological diversity.
Taxonomy is a branch of biology responsible for classifying, organizing, and identifying the biological diversity found in nature. Through taxonomy, scientists are able to group living beings according to their physical, genetic, and evolutionary characteristics, facilitating the study and understanding of life on the planet.
One of the main goals of taxonomy is to rank Organisms are classified into hierarchical categories, such as kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. This classification allows scientists to organize the enormous biological diversity in a logical and systematic way, facilitating communication and understanding of the different groups of living beings.
In addition to classifying, taxonomy also has the role of organize organisms according to their evolutionary relationships, helping to reconstruct the tree of life and understand the history of biological diversity. Through taxonomy, scientists can identify patterns of kinship between different groups of organisms and trace the evolution of species over time.
Another important goal of taxonomy is identify living beings, assigning each organism a unique and universally recognized scientific name. This binomial nomenclature, created by Carl Linnaeus, allows scientists to refer to organisms precisely and unambiguously, facilitating communication and the exchange of information among researchers around the world.
By classifying, organizing, and identifying living beings, taxonomy helps us unravel the mysteries of life and preserve the rich biodiversity on our planet.
Main goals of Bloom's taxonomy: learn the objectives behind educational classification.
Bloom's Taxonomy is an educational framework whose main goals are to classify and organize learning objectives. Developed by Benjamin Bloom and his collaborators in the 1950s, this taxonomy is widely used worldwide to assist educators in developing curricula, lesson plans, and assessments.
The goals of Bloom's Taxonomy include providing a clear guide for teachers regarding the different levels of learning, helping students understand what is expected of them at each stage of the educational process, and facilitating the assessment of student progress. Furthermore, this educational classification aims to promote the creation of teaching activities that stimulate critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving.
It's important to emphasize that Bloom's Taxonomy isn't limited to memorizing information, but also encompasses more complex cognitive skills, such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Thus, it contributes to a more comprehensive and meaningful education, preparing students to face the challenges of the contemporary world.
Marzano Taxonomy: What it is and what it is for
A Marzano taxonomy is a classification system developed by Marzano and Kendall, based on Bloom's taxonomy, one of the best-known in the field. This classification of objectives was created primarily to incorporate new knowledge about how humans process information.
These discoveries were made over the decades following the publication of Bloom's original taxonomy. The authors of Kendall's taxonomy believed that while Bloom had wanted to create a practical theory that would help create educational objectives, he had not succeeded in this endeavor.
Instead, they created a theoretical system that had little impact on the school curriculum. Therefore, these authors attempted to create a more practical taxonomy that would help improve the educational system. By creating a more applicable classification system, teachers could better tailor their teaching to students.
What does Marzano's taxonomy consist of?
Marzano's taxonomy consists mainly of two interacting dimensions: knowledge domains and processing levels.
– Knowledge domains
There are three domains of knowledge: information, mental procedures, and psychomotor procedures. This is the type of learning a student can perform.
Marzano's taxonomy considers that the knowledge we can learn is mainly of three types:
training
It involves the acquisition of pure data, such as dates, historical events, or theories. This is what we generally understand as "knowledge." It is purely mental learning.
Mental procedures
These are ways of thinking that require following certain steps to achieve a goal. For example, applying mathematical formulas or a logical thought system would be types of mental procedures. So would learning to read or speak a new language.
Psychomotor procedures
This refers to all knowledge related to the use of the body and physical abilities. Within this classification, we can find all sports skills and others, such as writing or playing an instrument.
– Processing levels
Although they are usually divided into three (cognitive, metacognitive and internal or ), in practice they are usually divided into six sublevels. This is the level of depth at which the student can acquire new knowledge.
The classification of processing levels is as follows:
The cognitive level
Information is still conscious. Here we can find four sublevels, which are as follows: retrieval, understanding, analysis, and use of knowledge.
The metacognitive level
New knowledge is applied to regulate mental processes. Thanks to metacognitive learning, you can set goals and self-regulate to achieve them.
Level internal or own
It occurs when new knowledge affects the belief system of the individual who acquires it.
The two classifications interact with each other, so in each of the three types of learning we can find a description of the six levels of processing.
What is?
Gradual increase in knowledge
The taxonomy created by Marzano and Kendall is more practice-oriented, focusing on the design of specific tasks to gradually increase students' knowledge levels. This improvement in design is achieved, above all, by taking into account processes that were not present in Bloom's taxonomy.
Some of the processes Marzano and Kendall included in their taxonomy are emotions, a person's beliefs, self-awareness, and goal-setting. All of these processes are part of what is known in the research world as metacognition.
More focused on adults
Because metacognition develops over time, Marzano and Kendall's taxonomy is more geared toward working with adults and acquiring professional skills. However, it can also be used when working with children.
The most important part of these authors' work is its theoretical foundation; that is, the inclusion of all the scientific knowledge created in recent decades about how human learning works.
Advantage
Thanks to the addition of this knowledge, Marzano's taxonomy has some advantages over Bloom's:
– Greater number of suggestions to work with learning objectives, depending on pure information, mental or psychomotor procedures.
– Better understanding of certain fundamental learning processes, such as emotion, memory, motivation, and metacognition.
– Greater precision in creating learning objectives, with a more specific map of the types of knowledge that can be acquired and how they are acquired.
– Because of this greater precision when creating goals, it can also be more easily assessed whether they have been achieved.
Differences from Bloom's Taxonomy
Perhaps the most striking difference between Bloom's and Marzano's taxonomy is the type of learning both authors consider possible.
– On the one hand, Bloom stated that knowledge can be of three types: cognitive (what we call information in Marzano's taxonomy), psychomotor (the equivalent of psychomotor procedures) and affective (related to emotions and ways of feeling).
– On the contrary, Marzano and Kendall consider that emotions are not a separate knowledge system, but are something that mediates the acquisition of all other types of knowledge.
Theoretical foundation
In addition to this fundamental difference in the classification of knowledge, Marzano's taxonomy is much more research-based than Bloom's.
Due to criticism of the previous classification system from many theorists, Marzano and Kendall set out to improve the existing taxonomy with the new knowledge generated by cognitive research.
As a result, the theoretical basis of Marzano's taxonomy is much stronger than that of his predecessor.
About Marzano and Kendall
Robert J. Marzano
American educational researcher. He has published over 200 articles on education, cognition, educational leadership, and practical program development for teachers and coaches. He is also the author or co-author of over 50 books.
He has conducted educational research and theory on the topics of standards-based assessment, cognition, high-performance teaching strategies, and school leadership, including the development of programs and practical tools for teachers and administrators in elementary and secondary schools.
John S. Kendall
A graduate in Psychology, he was a professor at Gustavus Adolphus College for over 30 years.
References
- “Robert Marzano’s Taxonomy: Recommended Verbs for Indicators and Cognitive Levels” in: Orientación Andújar. Retrieved on: March 6, 2018 from Orientación Andújar: orientacionandujar.es.
- Gallardo Córdoba, 2009. "The new taxonomy of Marzano and Kendall: an alternative to enrich educational work through its planning." New Marzano and Kendall Taxonomy Manual. Retrieved from cca.org.mx
- “Marzano’s Taxonomy” in: Alex Duve. Retrieved on: March 6, 2018 from Alex Duve: alexduve.com.
- “Understanding Taxonomy” in: Marzano Taxonomy. Retrieved on: March 6, 2018 from Marzano Taxonomy: taxonomiamarzano.weebly.com.
- “Comparison of taxonomies: Bloom, Marzano and Webb” in: Educational Therapy. Retrieved on: March 6, 2018 from Educational Therapy: rapiaeducativa.wordpress.com.