Through Chapter 5, I can explore what goals and objectives are and the relationship between them as well as a variety of ways to formulate and articulate them.
Goals are a way of putting into words the main purposes and intended outcomes of your course. If we use analogy of a journey, the destination is the goal; the journey is the course. The objectives are the different points you pass through on the journey to the destination. As J.D. Brown proposes that goals are “what the students should be able to do when they leave the program.” Goals are future oriented. Making goals must aim that the course will explicitly address in some way so that it helps bring students into focus their visions and priorities for the course.
Objectives are statements about how goals will be achieved. Through objectives, a goal is broken down into learnable and teachable units. By achieving the objectives, the goal will be reached .Teachers always ask themselves “ Will achieving this objective help to reach the goal?” When they determined that the answer is no, they must eliminate that objective and seek other, more appropriate objectives. That is, if the goal remains important is not achieved through the means or objectives, then the objectives may need to be examined and changed or refined so that the goal can be reached. In short, objectives spell out what the students will actually learn or be able to do by the end of the course. General objectives spell out holistic results and specific objectives spell out particular knowledge or skills the students will acquire (Vale, Scarino, McKay 1996).
Objectives are in a hierarchical relationship to goals. Goals are more general and objectives more specific. Brown (1995) points out that one of the main differences between goals and objectives is to help achieve it which means goals are more long term, objectives more short term. In addition, one objective may serve more than one goal and many goals are served by the same objectives.
Formulating goals and objectives helps to build a clear vision of what you will teach. Because a goal is something toward which you will explicitly teach, stating goals helps to define priorities and to make choices. Goals and objectives provide a basis for making choices about what to teach and how. Objectives serve as a bridge between needs and goals. Stating goals and objectives is a way of holding students accountable throughout the course.
Below is summary of guidelines to consider when formulating Goals and Objectives.
1. Goals should be general but not vague.
2. Goals should be transparent. Don’t use jargon.
3. Goals should be realistic Goals should be achievable within the time frame of the course with that group of students.
4. Goals should be relatively simple. Unpack them and make them into more than one goal, if necessary.
5. Goals should be about something the course will explicitly address in some way.
6. Objectives should be more specific than goals. They are in a hierarchical relationship to goals.
7. Objectives should directly relate to the goals and focus on what students will learn.
8. There should be more objectives than goals. However, one objective may be related to more than one goal.
9. The goals and objectives give a sense of the syllabus of the course.
10. A clear set of goals and objectives provides the basis for evaluation of the course (goals) and assessment of students learning (objectives).
Teaching is required to make choices. So teachers should make appropriate decisions for the specific course in its specific context. Most of all, teachers must present clear idea of what the course is about and what students will learn. Since goals and objectives are not fixed ones they can be modified and changed accordingly. Teachers must keep monitoring goals and objectives and try to adapt them for successful completion of the course and for students!
Just like you, I also had goals and objectives that leaned to one side, test-centered. In other words, I could say that I had only knowledge goals in the KASA framework. Unfortunately, letting students choose right answers to questions was my goals and objectives. However, according to this chapter, the three frameworks (KASA, ATASK, Stern) all include affective goals of some sort. I realized that I didn’t take into consideration affective area such as attitude, value and culture in teaching students. From now on, both of us will be able to set goals and objectives considering all learning layers.:) It will not be easy but making goals and objectives explicit will make us remind whether we are on right track or not.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your comments. In reality, if tests results continues to affcet many fields in their lives, teahcers and studnets' goals and objectives can be focused on maily grades. But these days, government announced there will be various methods to educate students not for paper exam-centered but creativity,self-directed-learning,critical thinking, essay-type tests, etc. The more test ways exist ,the more various goals and objectives teachers try for students!
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