Writing instructional goals and objectives
Write goals and objectives using action verbs from Bloom's Taxonomy
Instructional goals and objectives can be tedious things to comprehend and write for beginning or novice educators. Bloom's Taxonomy* is an excellent framework for developing and writing sound instructional goals and objectives. With Bloom's Taxonomy, there are six levels of "knowing" related to any given content area. In order of increasing cognitive complexity, the levels are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
Here is a pyramid depicting the six levels of "knowing" according to Bloom's Taxonomy**:
Bloom's Taxonomy
There are certain action verbs associated with the levels of "knowing" in Bloom's Taxonomy that can be used to write instructional goals and objectives. These verbs serve as a great foundation for beginning to perceive and plan what you want to accomplish in an upcoming lecture or presentation. It also helps educators decide what their learners or attendees will take away from the lecture or presentation.
Here are some common action verbs that are used to write instructional goals and objectives:
Here are some common action verbs that are used to write instructional goals and objectives:
Action verbs from Bloom's Taxonomy
Something else that is very important to remember about writing instructional goals and objectives is to integrate measurable and objective learning tasks into the objectives.
Goals are written in a vague fashion, such as, "Expose students to the theoretical tenets of psychology."
Objectives are written to reflect what educators are going to do to achieve their goals. Whatever they plan to do, it must be measurable and observable. How many times will the learners do something? How many things will they do? How will they do it? What should they do?
For example, "Learners will be able to outline five prevalent theories in psychology: Psychoanalysis, cognitive-behavioral, Gestalt, person-centered, and existentialism."
You can see that I used an action verb, "outline," the actual number of theories we would cover, "five," and I identified the specific content to be presented.
As goals become more complex, then the instructional objectives and effort put forth by the teacher must become more complex. This means that the teacher must integrate higher order pedagogical (teaching) interventions and utilize learning objectives that are coincident with the analysis, synthesis, and evaluation levels of "knowing."
Lower-levels (knowledge, comprehension, application) of "knowing" are associated with instructional objectives for traditional didactic or lecture-based courses.
Higher-level "knowing" or action verbs (analysis, synthesis, evaluation) are used in instructional objectives for applied learning settings such as laboratories, clinical environments, graduate level education, practicums, internships, fellowships, residencies, and the field.
Goals are written in a vague fashion, such as, "Expose students to the theoretical tenets of psychology."
Objectives are written to reflect what educators are going to do to achieve their goals. Whatever they plan to do, it must be measurable and observable. How many times will the learners do something? How many things will they do? How will they do it? What should they do?
For example, "Learners will be able to outline five prevalent theories in psychology: Psychoanalysis, cognitive-behavioral, Gestalt, person-centered, and existentialism."
You can see that I used an action verb, "outline," the actual number of theories we would cover, "five," and I identified the specific content to be presented.
As goals become more complex, then the instructional objectives and effort put forth by the teacher must become more complex. This means that the teacher must integrate higher order pedagogical (teaching) interventions and utilize learning objectives that are coincident with the analysis, synthesis, and evaluation levels of "knowing."
Lower-levels (knowledge, comprehension, application) of "knowing" are associated with instructional objectives for traditional didactic or lecture-based courses.
Higher-level "knowing" or action verbs (analysis, synthesis, evaluation) are used in instructional objectives for applied learning settings such as laboratories, clinical environments, graduate level education, practicums, internships, fellowships, residencies, and the field.
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*Bloom, B. S.; Engelhart, M. D.; Furst, E. J.; Hill, W. H.;Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive domain. New York: David McKay Company.
**There were changes made to Bloom's original taxonomy by Anderson et al. (2000). However, I espouse the original Bloom et al. (1956) taxonomy.
**There were changes made to Bloom's original taxonomy by Anderson et al. (2000). However, I espouse the original Bloom et al. (1956) taxonomy.
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