Objectives

As I have progressed through the MAT program, I have found the concept of objectives to be both helpful and confusing. Reading the chapters in the Anderson and Krathwohl book helped clarify the meaning and uses for objectives.

Objectives are a concise and specific way of describing the end result of a learning event. They are

Intended results

Intended outcomes

Intended changes

Instructional activities, therefore, are a way of achieving that end. If you want students to be able to identify the internal organs of a frog (an objective), then the instructional activity would be to have the students dissect a frog.

 

                                                                     

There are three kinds of objectives…

Global objectives are, “complex, multifaceted learning outcomes that require substantial time and instruction to accomplish” (Anderson & Krathwohl 2001). These are objectives that are meant to inspire teachers and guide their multiyear curriculum (rather than day-to-day activities in individual classrooms). Global objectives provide vision and establish long-term goals.

Example: At my placement school (Orthopaedic High School), their goal for every graduating senior is that they be “career ready and college prepared”.

Educational objectives are more moderate in scope. These types of objectives can be accomplished in weeks or months as they usually dictate a unit of study or curriculum for an individual classroom. Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) write that educational objectives, “describe student behavior (e.g. to read, to interpret, to distinguish) and some content topic (e.g. musical scores, various types of social data, facts and hypotheses) on which the behavior will be performed”.

Example: A teacher prepares a unit of study with the educational goal that students develop “skills in distinguishing facts from hypotheses” (Anderson & Krathwohl 2001).

Finally, Instructional Objectives are the most narrow and detailed of all the objectives. The purpose of instructional objectives, “was to focus teaching and testing on narrow, day-to-day slices of learning in fairly specific content areas” (Anderson & Krathwohl 2001). Teachers use instructional objectives to prepare lesson plans and the daily activities in their classrooms.

Example: In my host teacher’s classroom, a recent instructional objective was that  the students be able to identify metaphors and similes in Martin Luther King Jr’s speech, “I Have A Dream”.