eJournal #4

Analyzing Instructional Goals

Over the last couple of weeks, your analysis has focused on identifying an instructional problem, assessing needs, analyzing context, and determining characteristics of learners. In our class discussions, we’ve also explored a broader context than the school, institution, or organization for which you are designing instruction—examining the nature and scope of attitudes, skills, and abilities needed in the 21^st Century.

The result of these analyses should lead to the development of instructional goals broad, generalized statements about what is to be learned. Some like to think of them as a target to be reached, or "hit." They differ from objectives, which are clear and concise statements detailing what the learner will be able to think, know, or do as a result of completing the instruction. Instructional objectives also describe the context in which the newly learned attitudes, knowledge, or skills will be applied and any tools available to the learners within the performance context.

The formulation of goals and objectives usually comes in the design phase. However, prior to moving into that phase, instructional designers analyze various goals and subgoals for the types of learning required given the needs assessment, context analysis, and characteristics of learners. In your eJournal entry for this week, think through what types of learning will address your instructional problem and explore possible goals and/or subgoals for the instruction that you will design in the next phase of the process.

Special note: Make sure you consider existing curriculum (if any exists) coming from the state, approved at your school, etc. I’d like you to also reflect on the question posed by Ritchhart, Morrison, & Church: “What kinds of thinking do you value and want to promote in your classroom?”. You may also consider another question implied in the excerpt from their book, “What kinds of thinking are necessary to build disciplinary understanding?”

For more guidance on Writing Instructional Goals & Objectives, visit http://www.personal.psu.edu/bxb11/Objectives/

This is my goal:

• Employees will report any suspicious behavior related to drugs in the workplace.

These are my subgoals:

• Employees will identify agency policy which prohibits use of drugs in the workplace.
• Employees will read learning scenarios about incidents of drugs in the workplace.
• Employees will make choices regarding what s/he would do in a given situation related to drugs in the workplace.
• Employees will respond to feedback about choices made regarding drug incidents in the workplace.

I really have to stop and think about whether I’m delving into objectives or stating overall goals of the course. The eLearning I inherited on Drug Free Workplace really just tells the learners to “report any suspicious behavior especially if related to drugs.” However, upon further analysis, I think this is the one overall goal of the eLearning and does not include the subgoals. The subgoals relate to the reporting, but give different, observable behaviors. Again, when I get into observable behaviors, I am probably delving more into the area of objectives. 

As our authors state, “Complex learning centers on integrated learning goals and multiple performance objectives that comprise tasks found on the job or in life. These coordinated goals and objectives promote the application and transfer of skills that make up complex learning.” (page 117) Building on the goal and objective, in a logical progression, helps students "reconstruct existing schema to align them with new experiences." ( 118) All levels of Bloom's thinking are necessary to construct meaning; however, think of it as a cyclical process that can return over and over to different areas rather than a linear hierarchy. Understanding is constructed through a real or simulated environments and through solving  problems with varied structures, complexities, and abstractness.