In this step of the instructional planning process, you will revise your initial learning outcomes, write these statements as objectives using a standard form, and categorize them into practical categories for teaching.
There are many ways to write learning objectives. You no doubt have learned how to do this in other educational experiences. Here are several samples of science objectives. Objectives should focus on what you want the student to learn, communicate clearly your intentions, and indicate how success can be achieved.
We will return to stating objectives again as we examine the types of objectives that you will develop for teaching.
As you can tell from the title of this section, the categorization of objectives into non-skills and skills has emerged into four categories as shown in the concept map below. Cognitions and affects are non-skill learning objectives, while skill objectives are divided into the categories of cognitive skills and psychomotor skills.
Concept Map of Intended Learning Outcomes
Cognitions include the science concepts, principles, and generalizations (rock, mineral, force, matter, atom, erosion, photosynthesis) that form the substantive character of your mini-unit and future units and courses of study. Affects are feelings and attitudes about the subject, or inner feelings concerning the students self-concept, or attitudes such as how one's ability to think scientifically, or be successful in science courses. Cognitive skill objectives refer to the student's ability to use intellectual abilities. Observing objects, inferring what happened from evidence, solving equations, and designing an experiment are examples of cognitive skill objectives. Psychomotor skill objectives include the obvious observable skills that students need to do in science courses. Using a meter rule, massing objects with a balance, focusing a microscope, preparing a slide are examples of psychomotor skill objectives.
Let's look at each of these categories, and while you read through these sections, revise and rewrite your initial list of learning outcomes to produce a final list that includes examples from each of these four categories.
Cognitions Concepts
and propositions Affects Attitudes and
feelings Cognitive Skills Cognitive abilities Psychomotor Skills Motor and laboratory
abilities
Cognitions. Science textbooks are full of cognitions. Take a moment and look at the glossary (all most all science textbooks have one). These entries represent the major cognitions that the textbook authors felt were the most important science ideas that students should learn. Cognitions can be concepts.. They can be also propositions or generalizations. Here are some examples of cognitions that interns wrote for science mini-units:
It is helpful to differentiate between two types of cognitions, namely concepts and propositions. A concept is a synthesis of objects, events, or actions into a single idea or representation. Concepts are classifications enabling students to comprehend the vast array of experiences in science. Grouping rocks into categories of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary is a powerful tool in learning about earth materials. Students can learn these categories by first hand experiences with rocks of each class. A learning objective for understanding rocks might look like this:
The student should grasp the
meaning of igneous (rocks formed from the crystallization of
molten materials, sedimentary (rocks formed from the
deposition of erosional material), and metamorphic (rocks
that have changed by heat and/or pressure) rocks.
To further define this learning objective, you should also show a concept map indicating the relationship among the concepts as shown in the Concept Map of Rocks. This approach to stating cognitions may be foreign to you if you have had previous experience writing "performance objectives." We will write performance objectives, but we will label them either cognitive skill objectives or psychomotor skill objectives.
Stating cognitions as we have done here recognizes the recent work in cognitive psychology. As Champagne and Klopfer point out, "the new cognitive perspective directs greater attention to the structure of the student's knowledge." They recommend using networks or concept maps as an alternative way to state objectives for science teaching. For example, instead of writing objectives as shown below, they propose that it is productive to write learning outcomes in terms of the cognitive processes and knowledge structures the students ought to learn. So, the concept map that you create for your mini-unit becomes a structural organization defining what you want the students to learn.
Propositions are learning objectives in which more than one concept is linked together. Linking the concepts of mass and acceleration can give us the proposition of momentum. Or the concepts of force and acceleration can be combined to give the following proposition: The acceleration of an object is directly related to the force exerted on it.
Propositions, like concepts, can be learned through actual experience with the concepts, but in a more indirect manner. Propositions by their very nature are abstractions, and require the student to make associations and relationships among concepts. It is important to identify the concepts students will need to know in order to understand propositions.
At this point you should examine your list of outcomes and your concept map and rewrite your cognitions as either concrete concept objectives or propositional objectives. Here are some examples to help you in this task.
Affects. Science courses of study should also include objectives that deal with feelings, values, and attitudes. Examples of objectives that focus on feelings, values and attitudes include:
Affects are often examined in terms of David Krathwohl's (1965) system of categorizing values. Affects need to be acted upon to be truly congruent with Krathwohl's highest category, characterization (the student acts on a set of internalized values, is generally predictable, and is willing to act individually and show self-reliance.). If you include affects in your mini-units (and you should), realize that students can learn affects at different levels.
Useful verbs to help you write affects include:
Using the examples and suggestions, examine your initial list of outcomes, and write at least one affect for your mini-unit.
Cognitive Skills. A cognitive skill is an objective that describes intellectual competencies that students will learn in the science course. No doubt your list of original learning objectives contained cognitive skill objectives. Cognitive skills can be recognized quite easily because they are normally stated in performance or behavioral terms. For example look at this list of cognitive skill objectives:
Cognitive skills are the most common form of objectives that teachers use to describe student learning. If you examine science textbooks, the objectives that are included in each chapter are generally cognitive skills.
When writing cognitive skills, you should consider the action words that you are using to describe the performance of the student. One convenient list of action words are the science processes that were discussed earlier. These include observe, classify, infer, measure, collect data, analyze data, predict, formulate hypotheses, design experiments, test hypotheses. Other action words include write, state, select, point to, name, match, list, interpret, identify, describe, distinguish, contrast, compare.
Cognitive skill objectives (as well as objectives for affects and psychomotor skills) should be written to include:
1. what the learner is expected to do2. what conditions are imposed when the student is asked to do it and
3. how you will recognize the student's success in doing it.
Finally, when designing science units, you should consider the intellectual level of the cognitive skills by using Bloom's taxonomy as a planning tool. Bloom's taxonomy organizes cognitive skills into a hierarchy of six levels (see the chart below). They are shown here with representative performance or intellectual behaviors characteristic of each level.
Level 1: Knowledge (name, match, state)Level 2: Comprehension (translate, interpret, write in your own words)
Level 3: Application (apply, solve, generalize)
Level 4: Analysis (trace, outline, break down)
Level 5: Synthesis (combine, integrate, propose, plan, create)
Level 6: Evaluation (judge, argue, validate)
1.0
Knowledge Knowledge is defined
as the remembering of previously learned specific facts to
complete theories, but all that is required is the bringing
to mind of the appropriate information. Knowledge represents
the lower lever of learning outcomes in the cognitive
domain. Performance
behaviors: Defines, describes, identifies, labels,
lists, matches, names, reproduces, states Sample learning
outcome: The student will be
able to define the following terms: solute,
solution. 2.0
Comprehension Comprehension is
defined as the ability to grasp the meaning of material.
This may be shown by translating material from one form to
another (words to numbers), and by interpreting material
(explaining or summarizing). These learning outcomes go one
step beyond the simple remembering of material, and
represent the lowest level of understanding. Performance
behaviors: Converts, explains,
extends, generalizes, gives examples, infers, paraphrases,
rewrites, summarizes. Sample learning
outcome: The student will be
able to summarize the process of
photosynthesis. 3.0
Application Application refers
to the ability to use learned material in new and concrete
situations. This may include the application of such things
as rules, methods, concepts, principles, laws, and theories.
Learning outcomes in this area require higher level of
understanding than those under comprehension. Performance
behaviors: Changes, computes,
demonstrates, discovers, manipulates, operates, prepares,
produces, relates, shows, solves, uses. Sample learning
outcome: The student will be
able to compute the area of a forest given the
formula for area, and a map of the targeted
forest. 4.0
Analysis Analysis refers to
the ability to break down material into its component parts
so that its organizational structure may be understood. This
may include the identification of the parts, analysis of the
relationships between parts, and recognition of the
organizational principles involved. Performance
behaviors: Breaks down,
diagrams, differentiates, discriminates, distinguishes,
outlines, points out, relates, selects, separates,
sub-divides. Sample learning
outcome: The student will be
able to diagram in the form of a concept map the
concepts related to photosynthesis. 5.0
Synthesis Synthesis refers to
the ability to put parts together to form a new whole. This
may involve the production of a unique communication (theme
of a report), a plan of operation (experimental design), or
a set of abstract relations (scheme for classifying
information). Learning outcomes in this area stress creative
behaviors, with major emphasis on the formulation of new
patterns or structures through combination. Performance
behaviors: Combines, compiles,
composes, creates, devises, designs, generates, modifies,
organizes, plans, rearranges, reconstructs, reorganizes,
revises, rewrites, writes. Sample learning
outcome: The student will be
able to plan an experiment to test a
hypothesis. 6.0
Evaluation Evaluation is
concerned with the ability to judge the value of material
(science article or newspaper report, research study), for a
given purpose. The judgements are to be based on definite
criteria. These may be internal criteria (organization) or
external criteria (relevance to the purpose) and the student
may determine the criteria or be given them. Learning
outcomes in this category are highest in the cognitive skill
hierarchy because they contain elements of all the other
categories. Performance
behaviors: Compares, concludes,
contrasts, criticizes, describes, discriminates, explains,
justifies, interprets, rates, relates,
summarizes. Sample learning
outcome: After viewing video
tape speeches by environmental activists,the student will be
able to rate the speeches in terms of content
accuracy, persuasion, and tact.
Examine your list of intended learning outcomes, and rewrite those that fall into the category of cognitive skills.
Psychomotor Skills. Science teaching should emphasize the learning of psychomotor skills, which certainly should include the work student's do in the science laboratory, as well as while engaged in the variety of hands-on activities that you will prepare for them. There are a number of categories of psychomotor skills including moving, manipulating, communication and creating.
Psychomotor skill objectives are most obvious in the science laboratory. Although there is not full agreement on what outcomes are derived in laboratory activities in science, the following represent the major categories:
1. methodilogical procedure2. experimental technique
3. manual dexterity
4. orderliness
From this list is obvious that laboratory science work involves cognitions, affects as well as psychomotor skills. Therefore, it is important to note that most psychomotor skill objectives that you write will involve cognitive thinking as well. For example plotting a veloctiy-time graph with constant slope combine psychomotor skill of graphing and cognitive skills and understanding of velocity, time, and slope.
At this stage of your work, you should have a list of intended learning outcomes that include cognitions, affects, cognitive skills and psychomotor skills. Your now ready to move to the next step---listing potential activities.