The opening scenario with Mrs. Salazar demonstrated how national, state, and local classroom goals and objectives can influence classroom lessons. On the national level, Mrs. Salazar wanted her students to be aware of the need to replenish natural resources, such as the water supply. On the state level, she wanted to show her students various methods states use to treat and purify water. On a local level, she wanted them to be able to filter a sample of water and thus increase its purity. Compared with the national level, the local level is much more specific and includes an observable activity that students can do to demonstrate their understanding of the concept being explained. I liked this opening scenario because I could relate to it. As a biology major, I completed many labs. Not only was this concrete, observable proof to my professor that I was meeting the objectives for the class, it was also concrete, observable proof to me that I understood what I was learning.
On page 62, the authors state, �Goals can provide direction for teachers in terms of long-term or annual planning, unit planning (which spans several weeks or a month), or daily lesson planning.� Long-term goals are very general and offer an idea of where students should be headed academically. Unit-level goals help teachers focus on what they want students to learn from a unit of study that will spread over several weeks. These goals are not very specific, but are, according to the authors, �directly measurable (p. 63).� Lesson-planning goals are �very specific and observable (p. 63)� and it is these goals that teachers use to create objectives for their classroom.
According to the authors on page 63, classroom objectives should answer two questions:
1. What does the teacher want students to know, understand, or be able to do after completing the units and lessons?
2. How will the teacher determine that the students know, understand, or can do this?
Objectives can be prepared in several ways that incorporate these two questions. Two of the most common ways objectives are prepared are based on the works of two people: Robert Mager (behavioral objectives) and Norman Gronlund (goal objectives) (p. 64.)
Mager�s behavioral objectives system answers the question, �How will I know if the students knows, understands, or appreciates (p. 65)?� According to the book, �Mager suggests that an effective objective has three parts: (1) an observable behavior, (2) the conditions under which the behavior will occur, and (3) criteria for acceptable performance (p. 64).� Essentially, an objective written using Mager�s system contains an evaluation statement and a goal.
To me, Mager�s system, discussed on pages 64 to 73, seems very logical and I feel it could loosely be compared to writing a scientific report. In the �Results� section of a scientific paper, you record what happened in an experiment, based on your observations. This could correspond to Mager�s part 1 (an observable behavior) since in both cases, results are based on what was observed. In the �Introduction� section of a scientific paper (or even in the abstract), you would discuss your hypothesis for your experiment. This could correspond to Mager�s part 2 (the conditions under which the behavior will occur), because in both cases, there *are* conditions under which a certain behavior or event is expected to occur. In the �Methods� section of a scientific paper, you would write what you did to set up an experiment (i.e. what criteria you used) so that someone else could duplicate your experiment under the exact same conditions. This could correspond to Mager�s part 3 (criteria for acceptable performance.)
Gronlund�s goal objective system, discussed on pages 74 to 76, first states the goal of the objective in general terms and then describes �specific behaviors� to show that the learner has met the objective (p. 75). Gronlund�s system differs from Mager�s in that in his objective system, the specific criteria that will be used to measure acceptable performance is not mentioned. Despite this, the authors note that curriculum writers will still use Gronlund�s system for writing objectives, but will modify it, so that it *does* include specific criteria that teachers can use to measure acceptable performance among their students.
Objectives play a major role in schools and help teachers to better instruct their students. The book noted that today�s schools strongly emphasize performance objectives. I have yet to work in a school environment, but based on the experience of one of the teachers I interviewed, performance objectives are heavily emphasized in the classroom. Statewide objectives often appear (to students, at least) in the form of standardized tests. Information from such tests can then be compared to national standards and thus national objectives.
Chapter 3 taught me quite a bit about what objectives are, what they should include, and how to create effective ones. However, I�m a bit confused when the book refers to the �goals approach� objectives. On page 65, the book states that, �this approach [the goals approach] combines Mager�s objective, which is an evaluation statement, with a goal.� What confuses me is that Mager�s objective system seems to imply (to me at least) a goal already, yet the book says his system does not use goals. For instance, in the example on page 64, �Given 6 sentences, fifth graders will identify each that contains a simile.� To me, it seems like this objective would imply that students will have a goal of learning what the concept simile is. I would appreciate any insight others may have to offer on this topic.