Chapter 6: Learning Goals and Objectives
- What is a Lesson Objective?
- Bloom’s Taxonomy
- Learning Goals
- Writing Objectives
What is a Lesson Objective?
Lesson Objective: The lesson objective states what students will know or be able to do at the end of the lesson. The strategies, materials, assignments, and assessments used in a lesson are determined by and must align with the lesson objective. Therefore, lesson planning begins with the end in mind.
Video: Creating Learning Objective Video
https://youtube.com/watch?v=_woMKwBxhwU%3Fsi%3DVUOKMpHPquBX07WV
Goals vs. Objectives
When planning lessons, GOALS describe the lesson’s summative outcomes (where students will go), and the OBJECTIVES describe how students will get there.
Video: The Role of Learning Outcomes
Source: https://youtu.be/YHbjhcmAYac?si=z1TX4aX_OLT03vuM
Include SMART attributes when writing objectives:
S-Specific: Concise, well-defined statements of what students will know, understand, and be able to do at the end of the lesson. The objective should state exactly what is to be accomplished by the student and the conditions in place, such as,
- Given a topic on American history,…,
- Provided with a calculator and a three-minute time limit,…, or
- Independently, following the five-step scientific method,….
Learning outcomes should be simply stated in student-centered terms. If students are aware of the intended outcome, then they know where their focus should lie. This clarity helps decrease anxiety about their ability to succeed and helps build intrinsic motivation.
M-Measurable: Learning objectives must be quantifiable. Measurable objectives state the outcomes that can be assessed in definite and specific ways, the quality or level of performance that will be considered acceptable (mastery level). The criterion can be expressed by describing the performance standard to be met. For example, Write a descriptive paragraph that includes a topic sentence, three supporting detail sentences, and a closing sentence.
It is easier if you start with behavioral verbs (action verbs) that can be observed (either informally or formally) and measured. Using concrete verbs will help keep your objectives clear and concise. Bloom’s Taxonomy provides a list of such verbs, which are categorized according to the level of achievement at which students should be performing.
While the verbs above clearly distinguish the action that should be performed, there are verbs to avoid when writing a learning objective. The following verbs are too vague or difficult to measure: appreciate, cover, realize, be aware of, familiarize, study, become acquainted with, gain knowledge of, comprehend, know, learn, understand, learn.
A-Attainable: Learning objectives should be written at the appropriate developmental level for student success. It is essential that students have the pre-requisite knowledge and skills and that the lesson’s time frame supports achieving the objective. You can determine the appropriate level of challenge by referring to pre-assessment results. Learning activities should be challenging yet offer students a realistic chance to master the objective.
R-Relevant: The skills or knowledge described must be appropriate for the grade level and subject area or an individual’s IEP goals. The process of setting learning objectives begins with knowing the specific standards, the benchmarks, and the supporting knowledge students in your school or district are required to learn. Common Core State Standards and curriculum documents are the source for this information. This is essential to ensure students receive the same important content from teacher to teacher.
T-Time-bound: Time-bound – State when students should be able to demonstrate the skill (“By the end of the lesson,…”, etc.).
SMART Goal Examples
- After reading the book “Life in the Rainforest” and participating in a class discussion, students will accurately identify three specific similarities and three specific differences between plants and animals as demonstrated through written completion of a Venn diagram.
- At the conclusion of this lesson and following class discussion, students will accurately present, in writing or explanation with illustrations, three roles of local government and the responsibilities of each.
- After two lessons on digestion patterns, students will accurately identify, in writing, the digestive function of each area of the alimentary digestive system as demonstrated in a student-generated labeled diagram.
(Center for Educational Resources – John Hopkins University, The Innovative Instructor Blog-Marcia Hall, July 2016; Designing Lessons for the Diverse Classroom, Bureau of Instructional Support and Community Services, Division of Public Schools and Community Education, Florida Department of Education)
Additional examples:
- Following this 30-minute lesson, provided with 5 index cards containing two-syllable nonsense words ending with the “consonant-le” syllable pattern, students will correctly read at least 4 of the 5 words without visually marking them.
- By the end of two lessons on bullying, students will correctly explain the difference between a bully and a friend. Students will have a choice of writing a short paragraph that includes a thesis statement and call to action or providing an oral presentation that includes a thesis statement and call to action.
- At the conclusion of this lesson on measuring volume, in which students will work in pairs to measure the volume of a cone, sphere, and cylinder, students will individually measure the volume of each correctly. Students will choose one object of each shape from various everyday objects, correctly identify each shape, and choose the correct formula for measuring and label each measurement accurately.
- By the end of this 40-minute lesson, after independently reading 5 provided complete sentences, students will use the ‘mountain’, underline, zigzag, and square symbols to label the initial capital letter, noun, verb, and ending punctuation in each sentence with 90% accuracy.
Measurable Objectives in Lesson Plan
The lesson goal should be written as a SMART goal and clearly articulate what students should know and/or be able to do at the end of the lesson.
The best lesson objectives require that students utilize higher-order/deep thought processes. Goals that target learning (versus completion) are more likely to be connected to quality learning experiences that stretch students’ thinking, foster self-reflection, and encourage skills transfer. Lesson objectives that are learning-oriented (EX: “Students will accurately describe four cause and effect relationships” vs “Students will accurately answer four of five comprehension questions”) focus on the actual skill that the lesson objective targets.
References:
- Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHbjhcmAYac
License Lesson Planning 101 Copyright © 2019 by Deborah Kolling and Kate Shumway-Pitt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Bloom’s Taxonomy is a classification system used to define and distinguish different levels of human cognition—i.e., thinking, learning, and understanding.
Educators have typically used Bloom’s taxonomy to inform or guide the development of assessments (tests and other evaluations of student learning), curriculum (units, lessons, projects, and other learning activities), and instructional methods such as questioning strategies (Bloom’s Taxonomy, 2014).
Caption: Photograph of Benjamin Bloom’ Image Source: http://redie.uabc.mx/contenido/vol6no2/art-104-spa/bloom.png
Biography
Benjamin Samuel Bloom, one of the greatest minds to influence the field of education, was born on February 21, 1913, in Lansford, Pennsylvania. As a young man, he was already an avid reader and curious researcher. Bloom received both a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1935. He went on to earn a doctorate’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1942, where he acted as first a staff member of the Board of Examinations (1940-43), then a University Examiner (1943-59), as well as an instructor in the Department of Education, beginning in 1944. In 1970, Bloom was honored with becoming a Charles H. Swift Distinguished Professor at the University of Chicago.
Bloom’s most recognized and highly regarded initial work spawned from his collaboration with his mentor and fellow examiner Ralph W. Tyler and became known as Bloom’s Taxonomy. These ideas are highlighted in his third publication, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Handbook I, The Cognitive Domain. He later wrote a second handbook for the taxonomy in 1964, which focuses on the affective domain. Bloom’s research in early childhood education, published in his 1964 Stability and Change in Human Characteristics sparked widespread interest in children and learning and eventually and directly led to the formation of the Head Start program in America. In all, Bloom wrote or collaborated on eighteen publications from 1948-1993.
Aside from his scholarly contributions to the field of education, Benjamin Bloom was an international activist and educational consultant. In 1957, he traveled to India to conduct workshops on evaluation, which led to great changes in the Indian educational system. He helped create the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and organized the International Seminar for Advanced Training in Curriculum Development. He developed the Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistical Analysis (MESA) program at eh University of Chicago. He was chairman of both the research and development committees of the College Entrance Examination Board and the president of the American Educational Research Association.
Introduction
One of the basic questions facing educators has always been, “Where do we begin in seeking to improve human thinking?” (Houghton, 2004). Fortunately, we do not have to begin from scratch in searching for answers to this complicated question. The Communities Resolving Our Problems (CROP) recommends, “One place to begin is in defining the nature of thinking.
Before we can make it better, we need to know more of what it is” (Houghton, 2004). Benjamin S. Bloom extensively contemplated the nature of thinking, eventually authoring or co-authoring 18 books. According to a biography of Bloom, written by former student Elliot W Eisner, “It was clear that he was in love with the process of finding out, and finding out is what I think he did best. One of Bloom’s great talents was having a nose for what is significant” (2002).
Although it received little attention when first published, Bloom’s Taxonomy has since been translated into 22 languages and is one of the most widely applied and most often cited references in education. (Anderson & Sosniak, 1994, preface), (Houghton, 2004), (Krathwohl, 2002), (oz-TeacherNet, 2001). As of this writing, three other chapters in this e-book make reference to Bloom’s Taxonomy, yet another testament to its relevance.
History
In 1780, Abigail Adams stated, “Learning is not attained by chance; it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence” (quotationspage.com, 2005).
- Learning, teaching, identifying educational goals, and thinking are all complicated concepts interwoven in an intricate web.
Bloom was arduous, diligent, and patient while seeking to demystify these concepts and untangle this web. He made “the improvement of student learning” (Bloom 1971, Preface) the central focus of his life’s work.
Discussions during the 1948 Convention of the American Psychological Association led Bloom to spearhead a group of educators who eventually undertook the ambitious task of classifying educational goals and objectives. Their intent was to develop a method of classification for thinking behaviors that were believed to be important in the processes of learning. Eventually, this framework became a taxonomy of three domains:
- The Cognitive – the knowledge-based domain consisting of six levels,
- The Affective – the attitudinal-based domain consisting of five levels, and
- The Psychomotor – the skills-based domain consisting of six levels.
In 1956, eight years after the group first began, work on the cognitive domain was completed, and a handbook commonly referred to as “Bloom’s Taxonomy” was published. This chapter focuses its attention on the cognitive domain.
While Bloom pushed for the use of the term “taxonomy,” others in the group resisted because of the unfamiliarity of the term within educational circles.
Eventually, Bloom prevailed, forever linking his name and the term. The small volume intended for university examiners “has been transformed into a basic reference for all educators worldwide. Unexpectedly, it has been used by curriculum planners, administrators, researchers, and classroom teachers at all levels of education” (Anderson & Sosniak, 1994, p. 1). While it should be noted that other educational taxonomies and hierarchical systems have been developed, it is Bloom’s Taxonomy that remains, even after nearly fifty years, the de facto standard.
What is Bloom’s Taxonomy?
Understanding that “taxonomy” and “classification” are synonymous helps dispel uneasiness with the term. Bloom’s Taxonomy is a multi-tiered model of classifying thinking according to six cognitive levels of complexity. Throughout the years, the levels have often been depicted as a stairway, leading many teachers to encourage their students to climb to a higher (level of) thought.
The lowest three levels are knowledge, comprehension, and application. The highest three levels are analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. According to current research, “The taxonomy is hierarchical; [in that] each level is subsumed by the higher levels. In other words, a student functioning at the ‘application’ level has also mastered the material at the ‘knowledge’ and ‘comprehension’ levels.” (UW Teaching Academy, 2003). One can easily see how this arrangement led to natural divisions of lower and higher-level thinking.
Clearly, Bloom’s Taxonomy has stood the test of time. Due to its long history and popularity, it has been condensed, expanded, and reinterpreted in various ways. Research findings have led to the discovery of a veritable smörgåsbord of interpretations and applications falling on a continuum ranging from tight overviews to expanded explanations. Nonetheless, one recent revision (designed by one of the co-editors of the original taxonomy along with a former Bloom student) merits particular attention.
Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (RBT)
During the 1990s, a former student of Bloom’s, Lorin Anderson, led a new assembly that met for the purpose of updating the taxonomy, hoping to add relevance for 21st-century students and teachers. This time, “representatives of three groups [were present]: cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists” (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001, p. xxviii).
Like the original group, they were also arduous and diligent in their pursuit of learning, spending six years to finalize their work. Published in 2001, the revision includes several seemingly minor yet actually quite significant changes. Several excellent sources are available that detail the revisions and reasons for the changes. A more concise summary appears here. The changes occur in three broad categories: terminology, structure, and emphasis.
Terminology changes
Changes in terminology between the two versions are perhaps the most obvious differences and can also cause the most confusion. Basically, Bloom’s six major categories were changed from noun to verb forms. Additionally, the lowest level of the original knowledge was renamed and became remembering. Finally, comprehension and synthesis were retitled to understanding and creating. In an effort to minimize the confusion, comparison images appear below.
Bloom’s table http://www.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm
Exhibit 4: Terminology changes “The graphic represents the NEW verbiage associated with the long familiar Bloom’s Taxonomy. Note the change from Nouns to Verbs [e.g., Application to Applying] to describe the different levels of the taxonomy. Note that the top two levels are essentially exchanged from the Old to the New version.” (Schultz, 2005) (Evaluation moved from the top to Evaluating in the second from the top, Synthesis moved from second on top to the top as Creating.)
Source: http://www.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm- link/resource is no longer accessible.
The new terms are defined as:
- Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long-term memory.
- Understanding: Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining.
- Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure through executing or implementing.
- Analyzing: Breaking material into constituent parts determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and attributing.
- Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing.
- Creating: Combining elements to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing.
(Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001, pp. 67-68)
Structural changes
Structural changes seem dramatic initially, yet are quite logical when closely examined. Bloom’s original cognitive taxonomy was a one-dimensional form. With the addition of products, the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy takes the form of a two-dimensional table.
One of the dimensions identifies The Knowledge Dimension (or the kind of knowledge to be learned), while the second identifies The Cognitive Process Dimension (or the process used to learn).
Each of the four Knowledge Dimension levels is subdivided into either three or four categories (e.g. Factual is divided into Factual, Knowledge of Terminology, and Knowledge of Specific Details and Elements). The Cognitive Process Dimension levels are also subdivided by the number of sectors in each level, ranging from a low of three to a high of eight categories. For example, Remember is subdivided into the three categories of Remember, Recognizing, and Recalling, while the Understanding level is divided into eight separate categories.
The resulting grid, containing 19 subcategories, is most helpful to teachers in both writing objectives and aligning standards with curricula. The “Why” and “How” sections of this chapter further discuss the use of the Taxonomy Table and provide specific examples of applications.
Table 6.1. Bloom’s Taxonomy
Copyright (c) 2005 Extended Campus — Oregon State University
| Bloom’s Taxonomy (Revised) | ||
| Create | Verb
Change, combine, compare, compose, construct, create, design, devise, formulate, generate, hypothesize, imagine, improve, invent, plan, predict, propose |
|
Sample Question
|
||
Activities, Products, Outcomes:
|
||
| Evaluating
Making Judgments Based on Criteria |
Verb | argue, appraise, assess, check, debate, decide, defend, determine, dispute, editorialize, judge, justify, prioritize, rate, recommend, select, support, verify |
Access the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy and Sample Questions:
Verbs and Products/Outcomes Based on the Six Levels of Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy
Adapted from https://www.niu.edu/citl/resources/guides/instructional-guide/blooms-taxonomy.shtml, “Bloom’s Bakery, an Illustration of Bloom’s Taxonomy” by Argiro, Forehand, Osteen, & Taylor (2007), and Extending Children’s Special Abilities: Strategies for Primary Classrooms by Dalton & Smith (1987, pp. 36-37)
Level of Thinking(Highest to Lowest)VerbsSample Question / Statement StemsActivities, Products, Outcomes
| Creating: Making Something New | change, combine, compare, compose, construct, create, design, devise, formulate, generate, hypothesize, imagine, improve, invent, plan, predict, propose |
|
|
| Evaluating: Making Judgments Based on Criteria | argue, appraise, assess, check, debate, decide, defend, determine, dispute, editorialize, judge, justify, prioritize, rate, recommend, select, support, verify |
|
|
| Analyzing: Distinguishing Different Parts of a Whole | advertise, analyze, appraise, attribute, categorize, compare, contrast, differentiate, distinguish, examine, identify, infer, investigate, organize, outline, separate, sequence, test |
|
|
| Applying: Using Information in New Situations | classify, construct, complete, demonstrate, dramatize, examine, execute, illustrate, implement, practice, show, solve, use |
|
|
| Understanding: Explaining Information and Concepts | calculate, compare, define, describe, discuss, distinguish, expand, explain, identify, interpret, locate, outline, predict, report, restate, translate |
|
|
| Remembering: Recalling or Recognizing Information | describe, duplicate, find, list, locate, name, recall, recognize, reproduce, state, tell, underline, write |
|
|
Emphasis is the third and final category of changes. As noted earlier, Bloom himself recognized that the taxonomy was being “unexpectedly” used by countless groups and never considered an audience for the original publication. The revised version of the taxonomy is intended for a much broader audience. Emphasis is placed upon its use as a “more authentic tool for curriculum planning, instructional delivery, and assessment” (oz-TeacherNet, 2001).
Why use Bloom’s Taxonomy?
As history has shown, this well-known, widely applied scheme filled a void and provided educators with one of the first systematic classifications of the processes of thinking and learning. The cumulative hierarchical framework consists of six categories, each requiring achievement of the prior skill or ability before the next, more complex, one, remains easy to understand. Out of necessity, teachers must measure their students’ abilities. Accurately doing so requires classifying levels of intellectual behavior important in learning. Bloom’s Taxonomy provided the measurement tool for thinking.
With the dramatic societal changes over the last five decades, the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy provides an even more powerful tool to fit today’s teachers’ needs. The structure of the Revised Taxonomy Table matrix “provides a clear, concise visual representation” (Krathwohl, 2002) of the alignment between standards and educational goals, objectives, products, and activities.
- Today’s teachers must make tough decisions about how to spend their classroom time. Clear alignment of educational objectives with local, state, and national standards is necessary.
Like pieces of a huge puzzle, everything must fit properly. The Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy Table clarifies the fit of each lesson plan’s purpose, “essential question,” goal, or objective. The twenty-four-cell grid from Oregon State University that is shown above, along with the printable taxonomy table examples, can easily be used in conjunction with a chart. When used this way, the “Essential Question” or the lesson objective becomes clearly defined.
How can Bloom’s Taxonomy be used?
A search of the World Wide Web will yield clear evidence that Bloom’s Taxonomy has been applied to various situations. Current results include a broad spectrum of applications represented by articles and websites describing everything from corrosion training to medical preparation. In almost all circumstances, when an instructor desires to move a group of students through a learning process utilizing an organized framework, Bloom’s Taxonomy can prove helpful. Yet the educational setting (K-graduate) remains the most often used application. A brief explanation of one example is described below.
The educational journal Theory into Practice published an entire issue on the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy. Included is an article entitled “Using the Revised Taxonomy to Plan and Deliver Team-Taught, Integrated, Thematic Units” (Ferguson, 2002).
The writer describes using the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy to plan and deliver an integrated English and history course entitled “Western Culture.” The taxonomy provided the team teachers with a common language with which to translate and discuss state standards from two different subject areas. Moreover, it helped them to understand how their subjects overlapped and how they could develop conceptual and procedural knowledge concurrently. Furthermore, the taxonomy table in the revised taxonomy provided the history and English teachers with a new outlook on assessment and enabled them to create assignments and projects that required students to operate at more complex levels of thinking (Abstract, Ferguson, 2002).
Bloom’s group initially met hoping to reduce the duplication of effort by faculty at various universities. In the beginning, the scope of their purpose was limited to facilitating the exchange of test items measuring the same educational objectives. Intending the Taxonomy “as a method of classifying educational objectives, educational experiences, learning processes, and evaluation questions and problems” (Paul, 1985 p. 39), numerous examples of test items (mostly multiple choice) were included. This led to a natural linkage of specific verbs and products with each taxonomy level. Thus, when designing effective lesson plans, teachers often look to Bloom’s Taxonomy for guidance.
Likewise the Revised Taxonomy includes specific verb and product linkage with each of the levels of the Cognitive Process Dimension. However, due to its 19 subcategories and two-dimensional organization, there is more clarity and less confusion about the fit of a specific verb or product to a given level. Thus, the Revised Taxonomy offers teachers an even more powerful tool to help design their lesson plans.
As touched upon earlier, through the years, Bloom’s Taxonomy has given rise to educational concepts, including terms such as high and low-level thinking. It has also been closely linked with multiple intelligences (Noble, 2004), problem-solving skills, creative and critical thinking, and, more recently, technology integration.
Using the Revised Taxonomy in an adaptation from the Omaha Public Schools Teacher’s Corner, a lesson objective based upon the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears is presented for each of the six levels of the Cognitive Process as shown on the Revised Taxonomy Table.
- Remember: Describe where Goldilocks lived.
- Understand: Summarize what the Goldilocks story was about.
- Apply: Construct a theory as to why Goldilocks went into the house.
- Analyze: Differentiate between how Goldilocks reacted and how you would react in each story event.
- Evaluate: Assess whether or not you think this really happened to Goldilocks.
- Create: Compose a song, skit, poem, or rap to convey the Goldilocks story in a new form.
Although this is a very simple example of the application of Bloom’s taxonomy, the author is hopeful that it will demonstrate both the ease and the usefulness of the Revised Taxonomy Table.
Conclusion
Countless people know, love, and are comfortable with the original Bloom’s Taxonomy and are understandably hesitant to change. After all, change is difficult for most people. The original Bloom’s Taxonomy was and is a superb tool for educators. Yet, even “the original group always considered the [Taxonomy] framework a work in progress, neither finished nor final” (Anderson & Krathwohl 2001 p. xxvii). The new century has brought us the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy which really is new and improved.
Media
[LSU Center for Academic Success] (2013, May 26) Use Bloom’s to Think Critically [Video File} (4:20 minutes) from https://youtu.be/-DVecgNBPgM
Online resources on Bloom’s Taxonomy
Keep these resources on hand as a guide when you are writing lesson plans and developing learning objectives, student tasks, questions, and assessments.
Verbs, Sample question stems, Potential activities, and products
Kathy Schrock has organized apps across the six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy-“Bloomin Apps”
References
Forehand, M. . (2010) Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching, and Technology, Global Text, Michael Orey. (Chapter 3). Retrieved from https://textbookequity.org/Textbooks/Orey_Emergin_Perspectives_Learning.pdf
LICENSE
Ch. 8 Bloom’s Taxonomy Copyright © 2017 by Mary Forehand (The University of Georgia) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Learning Goals
The Learning goal describes the knowledge the learner is expected to obtain as a result of instruction (Mager, 1962). Normally, they start from very broad statements such as “learners will be able to fix a broken computer.” This phase starts to narrow the scope of the learning goal and focus on how to provide instruction. Remember, these are not objectives. Objectives will be covered specifically at the end of the process. Constructing the learning goal does not need to be complex, however, it needs to be focused.
Keep in mind learning goals may already predetermined depending on your setting. K-12 education may have learning goals set on the local or state level. Trade or vocational areas, industry training boards, or employers’ associations set learning goals that must be followed for qualifications to be accredited. Even in higher education, an instructor may ‘inherit’ a course where the goals are already set, either by a previous instructor or by the academic department. These situations require flexibility with the analysis.
Examples
- When provided a malfunctioning computer, the learner will be able to diagnosis the malfunction and conduct a repair.
- When given pertinent information about student loan reform, the learner will be able to write a position letter to their United States Congress representatives.
- When provided with movie information, the learner will be able to classify the movie into a specific genre.
Types of Learning
Robert Gagné posited that not all learning is equal and each distinct learning domain should be presented and assessed differently. Therefore, as an instructional designer, one of the first tasks is determining which learning domain applies to the content. The theoretical basis behind the Conditions of Learning is that learning outcomes can be broken down into five different domains: verbal information, cognitive strategies, motor skills, attitudes, and intellectual skills (see Figure 6.1).
Figure 6.1
Gagné’s Domains of Learning
Verbal information includes basic labels and facts (e.g. names of people, places, objects, or events) and bodies of knowledge (e.g. paraphrasing of ideas or rules and regulations). Cognitive strategies are internal processes where the learner can control his/her own way of thinking such as creating mental models or self-evaluating study skills. Motor skills require bodily movement, such as throwing a ball, tying a shoelace, or using a saw. Attitude is a state that affects a learner’s action towards an event, person, or object. For example, appreciating a selection of music or writing a letter to the editor. Intellectual skills have their own hierarchical structure within the Gagné taxonomy and are broken down into discrimination, concrete concepts, rule using, and problem-solving.
Discrimination is when the learner can identify differences between inputs or members of a particular class and respond appropriately to each. For example, distinguishing when to use a Phillips-head or a flat-head screwdriver. Concrete concepts are the opposite of discrimination because they entail responding similarly to all class members or events. An example would be classifying music as pop, country, or classical. A learner must relate two or more simpler concepts and, as a rule, state the relationship among concepts.
In many cases, it is helpful to think of these as “if-then” statements. For example, “If the tire is flat, then I either need to put air in the tire or change the flat tire.” Finally, problem-solving is combining lower-level rules and applying them to previously unencountered situations. This could include generating new rules through trial and error until a problem is solved.
Writing Objectives
A learning objective is a description of an optimal performance learners are expected to be able to exhibit before they are considered competent in meeting the learning goal (Mager, 1962). Essentially, the goal describes the knowledge the learner is expected to obtain, while the objective describes how the learner will demonstrate that they have obtained that knowledge. Once learning goals are established, learning objectives that are directly associated with these specific outcomes should be built. Consider the following example of a misaligned learning outcome and learning objective proposed by Dick and Reiser (1989): “The learning goal is developing lifelong health habits, and the associated learning objective is listing the major bones in the leg”(p. 23). Although both the outcome and the objective both fall under the content area of Health and the Human Body, the listing of the major bones in the leg would not be an appropriate performance to assess whether or not learners would be able to develop lifelong health habits.
Mager (1984) proposes that there are three elements of a quality learning objective: performance, condition, and criterion. The performance is what the learner is expected to do or the result of the instruction. The condition describes the circumstances in which the performance should occur. The criterion establishes the minimum threshold of acceptable performance. Furthermore, an objective should clearly express an observable behavior that students are expected to perform in order to indicate achievement (Dick & Reiser, 1989).
Orelove (1995) stated that when a goal includes the absence of performance on the part of a student, it also lacks quality. For example, “Johnny will sit quietly for 20 minutes” or “By the end of the course, students should know historically important dates in history” (p. 4). Neither of these examples requires observable activity or quality performance on the part of the students. In addition, neither goal is measurable. According to Benjamin Bloom. objectives should be measurable and serve to help create a structure for hierarchically classifying the measurability of learning objectives (Bloom, Engelhart, Furst, and Krathwohl, 1956; Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001).
A simple way to craft learning objectives is to use Heinrich, Molenda, Russell, and Smaldino’s (1996) ABCD format.
- Audience
- Behavior (Mager’s performance element)
- Condition (Mager’s condition element)
- Degree (Mager’s criterion element)
Heinrich et al. (1996) use Mager’s (1984) three elements while adding the audience. The audience is the learner. Sometimes, the generic term “learner” or “student” can be used. It is a best practice to be as specific as possible (Heinrich et al., 1996). For example, a 12th-grade history students or English Composition I students.
Objective Builder
To assist in writing learning objectives, the University of Central Florida (UCF) has created an easy-to-use objective builder at https://cdl.ucf.edu/teach/resources/objective-builder-tool/. This tool uses a modified version of Heinrich et al. (1996) ABCD format. The audience and condition are flipped to yield a CABD format. This was done to improve readability.
Objective Builder offers three learning domains to choose the behavior: cognitive (thinking), affective (feeling), and psychomotor (doing). Each domain uses a specific framework along with associated measurable verbs. The audience, condition, and degree components are textboxes and are displayed once they are entered. At the end of one objective, more can be added. Copy the objectives into a learning management system or Word document when completed. It is released open-source, so this means it is free to host on your own website, and edits can be made. More information is available at https://github.com/ucfopen/objective-builder.
Examples
Audience (A), Behavior (B), Condition (C), and Degree of Mastery (D).
Note: It is easier to write the learning objective in the order of C, A, B, D.
The learning objective is written in the cognitive domain at the understanding level of Anderson and Krathwohl’s Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain.
- Given a blank map of the United States, a fifth-grade social student will identify all 50 states and capitals with 90 percent accuracy.
The learning objective is written in the affective domain at the valuing level of Krathwohl and Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Affective Domain.
- Given a group project, the group members will seek input from everyone throughout the entire project.
Learning objective written in the psychomotor domain at the guided response level of Simpson’s Taxonomy of the Psychomotor Domain.
- Given pizza ingredients, the employee will assemble a pizza in less than 10 minutes.
Terminal objective example
- When provided with a plot, pacing, and the frequency of stunts, the learner will be able to classify the movie into a specific genre within two attempts.
Enabling objective example
- When given a movie scene, the learner will determine how many stunts occurred within two attempts.
Source:
- Introduction to Instructional Design Copyright © 2020 by John Raible is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.