Abstract

In this paper I develop a version of Bloom’s taxonomy applicable to philosophy, and I use it to create a tool for categorizing the Bloom level of assessment items in formal logic classes. I then show how to use the tool to improve the alignment of teaching and assessment in one’s courses. Alignment means we are assessing students on what we are actually teaching them. One dimension of alignment is cognitive levels, such as lower-level factual knowledge or higher-level critical reasoning skills. By using the tool to graph the Bloom level of one’s assessment items, one can better understand how well one’s assessment aligns with one’s teaching. Doing so allows instructors to make informed changes to both teaching and assessment, and, ultimately, to provide the right level of challenge to the majority of students.