Abstract:

The Indian school education system is one of the largest education system in the world. With both public and private schools, the Indian school system can be divided into four main categories – pre-primary (consisting of pre-school, lower and higher kindergarten), primary school (standard one to five), middle school (standard six to eight), secondary school (standard nine and ten) and high school (standard eleven and twelve / or pre university standard).

In this proposed work, we do a sample study on the distribution of Indian school curricula over Bloom's cognitive domain categories. We study the syllabuses of various school boards of India and try to classify their Learning Objectives as per Bloom's Taxonomy. A Learning Objective can be defined as describing a competency or performance capability that is to be acquired by the learner. Learning Objectives in a curriculum is related to achieving the desired learning outcomes. If the Learning Objectives are developed appropriately on the basis of Bloom’s taxonomy, it is expected that the Learning Objectives of the syllabus will be satisfied.

In this paper, we compare the Learning Objectives of ninth standard physics of some of the school board’s syllabus available in India, with the revised Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive domain. By this we are trying to identify how much of the curriculum relates to which cognitive category. In our proposed research work, we have found out that the Indian school boards that we took as case study are having curricula which is similar in terms of making students remember the facts, understand the concepts and apply those concepts to solve problems. Thus the written questions for evaluation and assessment in these board's schools, also focus on these three major aspects leading to 'Remember', 'Understand', ''Apply' and 'Analyze' level of Bloom's revised taxonomy of cognitive domain. However, the Central Board of Secondary Education and International Baccalaureate Organization’s syllabus goes beyond these levels and emphasizes on 'Evaluate' level of Blooms taxonomy and 'Metacognitive' level of knowledge dimension respectively.

In conclusion, we can say, if the school syllabus is written considering the Bloom’s taxonomy and knowledge dimension, it will be lot easier to analyze and evaluate that whether the Learning Objectives have been successfully satisfied on completion of the curriculum.

Keywords:

Indian School Curriculum, Bloom's Taxonomy Cognitive domain.