WRITING INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES

A Workshop Experience

Sponsored by

National Commission on O&P Education (NCOPE)at the

Academy’s Annual MeetingOrlando, Florida

February 29, 2008

WORKSHOP FACILITATORGene E. Gary-Williams, PT, Ph.D., MARS, FNSAH

Former Public Member of NCOPE

CALL me GENE

LET’S GET STARTED!!

OBJECTIVE 1

The participants will be able to:

• State and explain the importance of instructional objectives in health professions education.

REASONS FOR INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES

• Delineate the expectations for the learner as defined by the instructor(s);

• Clearly identifies the knowledge learners are expected to acquire or construct;

• Allows for and promotes progression in cognitive development and processing;

• Can include three learning domains – cognitive, affective, and psychomotor.

OBJECTIVE 2

The participants will be able to:

• Apply the knowledge of instructional objectives in preparing for didactic and clinical learning experiences.

The Cognitive Domain

• Knowledge – gained through information gathering, recognition, and recall.

• Comprehension or Understanding – confirms the information gathered and the use of the knowledge.

• Application – make use of the knowledge through execution and/or implementation.

The Cognitive Domain, cont.

• Analyze – break material into constituent parts and determine how parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose; includes differentiating, organizing and attributing.

• Synthesis – put elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganize elements into a new pattern or structure.

The Cognitive Domain, Cont.

• Evaluation – make judgments based on criteria and standards. Includes checking and critiquing.

• Create – includes generating, planning and producing. May be included as a part of synthesis.

The Affective Domain

• Receiving Phenomena – awareness, willingness to hear, selected attention.

• Responding to Phenomena – active participation in learning or similar experiences. Appropriately attends and reacts to a particular phenomenon.

• Valuing – internalization of a set of values with expression of the values in the learner’s overt behavior are identifiable.

The Affective Domain, Cont.

• Organization – organizes values into priorities through contrasting values, resolving conflicts between values and even creating a unique value system. Emphasis on comparing, relating and synthesizing values.

• Internalizing values – has a value system that controls behavior; exhibited behavior is pervasive, consistent, predictable and characteristic of the learner.

The Psychomotor Domain

• Perception – ability to use sensory cues to guide motor activity; ranges from sensory stimulation through cue selection, to translation.

• Set – readiness to act; includes mental, physical, and emotional sets.

• Guided Response – early stage in learning (a) complex skill(s) that include imitation and trial and error.

The Psychomotor Domain, Cont.

• Mechanism – the intermediate stage in learning a complex skill. Learned responses have become habitual and the movements can be performed with some confidence and proficiency.

• Complex Overt Response – the skillful performance of motor acts that involve complex movement patterns.

The Psychomotor Domain, cont.

• Adaptation – skills are well developed and the individual can modify movement patterns to fit special requirements.

• Origination – creating new patterns to fit a particular situation or specific problem.

OBJECTIVE 3

The participants will be able to:

• Illustrate the use of the Bloom’s (or other similar) taxonomy method to articulate learning expectations in the form of instructional objectives.

THE KNOWLEDGE DIMENSION

Four categories of knowledge

Factual – knowledge of 1 - terminology, 2 - specific details and elements.

Conceptual – knowledge of: 1- classifications and categories, 2 - principles and generalizations, 3 - theories, models, and structures.

The Knowledge Dimension, cont.

• Procedural – knowledge of 1- subject-specific skills and algorithms; 2 – subject-specific techniques and methods; 3 – criteria for determining when to use appropriate procedures.

• Metacognitive – strategic knowledge; knowledge about cognitive tasks – contextual and conditional; self-knowledge.

TAXONOMY TABLE

The knowledge Dimension-----------------------------------------------The Cognitive Process Dimension

1

knowledgeremember

2

comprehend

understand

3

apply

4

analyze

5

synthesize

create

6

evaluate

A.

Factual

knowledge

B.

Conceptual

knowledge

C.

Procedural

knowledge

D.

Meta-

cognitive

knowledge

OBJECTIVE 4

The participants will be able to :

Correlate instructional objectives with evaluation items/activities.

THE ALIGNMENT QUESTION

How does the instructor ensure that objectives, instruction, and assessment are consistent with one another?

THINGS TO CONSIDER

• If assessments are not aligned with objectives, then they do not provide clear evidence of intended student learning.

• If instructional activities are not aligned with assessment, then the assessment results may underestimate the effectiveness of instruction. The instruction may be superb and the learning equally superb, but nonaligned assessments do not capture evidence of that learning.

More Thoughts

• If instructional activities are not aligned with objectives, then students may be actively engaged in the activities but may not achieve the intended learning results. Objectives give purpose to instructional activities.

• Learners oftentimes perform more effectively on external exams when this alignment is consistent throughout the instructional phase.

TYPES OF ASSESSMENT

Cognitive– A. Formative – ongoing evaluation, across the

course or clinical experience– B. Summative – final assessment; more formal than

formative; may be cumulative of formative evaluations

AffectiveAssessment/evaluation is mostly based on observation – seeking to determine if the learner exhibits a value system consistent with that expected from a health care practitioner

Types of Assessment, cont.

Psychomotor

Evaluation may be on multiple levels. Skill development is generally measured in terms of speed, precision, procedures or techniques in execution.

PULLING IT TOGETHER

• Wording the objectives

• Selecting the taxonomy and the verbs

• Cognitive, Affective, Psychomotor Domains

• Starting in time

WORDING THE OBJECTIVE SEQUENCE

• Upon completion of the planned learning experiences the participating learner will, at a level of 80% on evaluation/assessment, demonstrate mastery of the listed objectives.

The learner will:

Selection of Taxonomy

Refer to Taxonomy Table (Slide 17)

Objectives should match the Knowledge Domain with the appropriate level in the Cognitive Process Dimension.

THE LEARNING DOMAINSSelecting the appropriate levels

• COGNITIVE

• AFFECTIVE

• PSYCHOMOTOR

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

•START IN TIME

DO WE HAVE SOME MINUTES?

•QUESTIONS

•CONCERNS

REFERENCES

• Anderson, LW & Krathwohl, DR, etal (Eds), A Taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing. New York: Longman. 2001.

• En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bloom%27s_Rose.png – site for the Bloom Rose

• “ Task Oriented Question Construction Wheel Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy” 2004

St. Edward’s University Center for Teaching Excellence.

References, cont.

• www.beaconlearningcenter.com/WebLessons/BloomsTaxonomy/blooms05.htm

• http://www.nwlink.com/-domclark/hrd/bloom.html

THANK YOU!!!!

You can reach me at either of the following:

ggarywilliams@gmail.comCell phone – 240.464.1517