instructional objectives

“What makes a good lesson”

Using instructional objectives (as developed by Gronlund)


This approach emphasises the observable and pragmatic:
The teacher identifies the general objectives of a learning process and then makes statements of “specific observable actions” that the students should be able to perform to indicate the levels of learning that are taking place. Verbs are carefully selected to communicate these instructional objectives, e.g.if following Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives, students could be asked to:
1 List, identify or summarise to demonstrate Knowledge
2 Explain, describe or interpret to demonstrate Comprehension
3 Apply, calculate or solve to indicate Application
4 Explain, classify or derive to demonstrate Analysis
5 Formulate, design or create to demonstrate Synthesis
6 Determine, optimise or select to demonstrate Evaluation
These instructional objectives are used by the teacher to:

1 Prepare and structure lessons
2 Communicate to students precisely what their learning process will be
3 Facilitate formative assessment.

To sum up ,this approach is useful once the teacher has done the hard yards of working out what lesson content would meet the needs of the students (in the deepest sense) . Only then could one apply this technique (for it is a technique rather than a theory )
to ensure that the content be solidly worked with.

National Curriculum:Evil or Enlightenment

In Judith Wheeldon's article"Labour the lesser evil" in the AustralianMarch 3,she very objectively tackles the issue of a national curriculum.
It is clear to me that a loss of diversity can be very dangerous, witness the moral horror of totalitarian regimes and movements that use their grip on education to promote their own ends ,brainwash the population, stifle creative thinking and critical reflection to produce a conformist mass.This is the Evil that a national curriculum could result in.
Of course this is an extreme, but even a small degree of using a national curriculum to further the ends of a political party is anathema to anyone who upholde the ideals of human beings becoming ever more conscious,free and individually responsible
.Judith Wheeldon recognises that the reasons for promoting the national curriculum are specious;particularly the reason of consistency for students who move interstate.Only 80,000 students per annum form this statistic. This number is too small to warrant the enormous change being suggested.
However, there is a possibility that an educational curriculum that is progressive, enlightened, innovative and inspired was able to be instituted as a national curriculum, this could reach all the population and help create a community of creative inspired and enlightened people able to have the means of solving future problems and meeting future moral and social challenges in an intelligent and responsible way.
The important element that must be a foundation for any new curriculum development is the primacy given to the development of creativity and critical reflection.A wholistic curriculum that encourages higher order learning in each subject
from K12 is to be highly recommended.