Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning
What is the Taxonomy of Significant Learning and how does it differ from Bloom’s Taxonomy?
Dr. L. Dee Fink discusses his rationale for developing a new taxonomy in the Significant Learning by Design course.
“During my four decades of working in higher education, I interviewed not just professors, but students, about what they consider to be significant learning moments and significant kinds of learning. What I mean by “significant learning” is learning that actually change how a student lived his or her personal, social, civic, or professional life. I found that many of the kinds of learning that students identified as being significant did not fit easily into Bloom’s Taxonomy, even if one refers to all three of his domains of learning. Therefore I created a new taxonomy, one that builds on Bloom’s concept of a ‘taxonomy of learning’ but has some true differences.”
– Dee Fink
Comparing Fink’s and Bloom’s Taxonomies
Many people find the Taxonomy of Significant Learning valuable and inspiring because it includes more than just cognitive learning. The right-hand side of this taxonomy refers to the same kinds of cognitive learning described in the well known taxonomy by Bloom and his colleagues. But the left-hand side goes beyond cognitive learning, to include specific skills that enable Significant Learning– learning that extends beyond the end of the course and includes Caring, people skills (called Human Dimension), and Learning How to Learn.
Read more about the benefits and limitations of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Integrated Nature of the Taxonomy
Like Bloom’s Taxonomy, the Taxonomy of Significant Learning has six major categories of learning, but unlike Bloom’s, the categories are not located in different “domains” and unlike Bloom’s it is integrated – not hierarchical.
This last characteristic is particularly important; it means that having students achieve any one kind of learning helps them achieve the other five kinds of learning.
