I wrote several posts about Bloom’s Taxonomy, and a few readers got back to me asking about the ‘action verbs’, so I decided to add another post with a little gift – the action words cheat sheet you could use to write your training materials.

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a hierarchical model that classifies educational objectives into six levels, assuming that we progress from lower-order to higher-order thinking skills as we learn. The term “active word” or “active verb” is not used in the original framework. Neither Bloom’s original book nor his followers’ work contain a list of such verbs. These verbs and verb tables have originated in various studies where researchers identified the most suitable tasks and activities for Bloom’s taxonomy levels.

Learning Objective Statement Structure

When we write your learning objective statement, it usually includes the action (verb) and an object (usually a noun).

• The verb usually refers to the intended cognitive process and actions that learners should perform at each level of learning.
• The object describes the knowledge, skill or competency learners are expected to acquire or construct.

While trainers usually have learning objectives in mind when developing a course, they don’t write them clearly enough. They often leave learners not clear about what to do.

Learning objectives should be free of vague or ambiguous words or phrases. The easiest way to do that is to use Bloom’s taxonomy and “verb tables“. These action verbs tables help describe activities corresponding to educational objectives at each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy and be more specific, actionable and measurable (you can read more about writing learning objectives in this post).

Before I share the Action Verbs Cheat Sheet, let me give you a tip on what verbs to avoid in your learning objectives