EDUCATORS INFLUENCING INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN



Educators Influencing Instructional Design



Educators Influencing Instructional Design

Instructional objectives do not state instructional procedures. Instructional procedures refer to what teachers do during instruction, including the media used and instructional activities. Instructional objectives, by contrast, are student-focused; these objectives center on what students should be able to do at the end of instruction. Thus, although instructional procedures are determined in light of objectives, the objectives state what the students should do rather than what the teacher should do. Instructional objectives are also different from instructional goals.

A goal is a broad, general statement regarding the intended benefits of instruction. Typically, goals are long term, spanning entire units of instruction. Objectives, by contrast, are specific and proximal (Gagne, 1992). Thus, the instructional objectives provide the level of specificity needed to guide daily activities and allow for monitoring of goal progress. A single instructional goal may be achieved after students have met a series of progressive instructional objectives.

How instructional objectives are conceptualized and written has been the focus of much work in educational psychology. The work of several researchers, such as Gagne (1992), Benjamin Bloom, and Robert Mager, has converged on a set of recommendations for writing objectives, and both behavioral and cognitive learning theories have established principles for the use of objectives in instruction.

According to Gagne (1992) instructional objectives are a critical piece of effective instruction because they clearly identify and communicate the intended outcomes for instructional events. Gagne (1992) further says that when a teacher communicates the instructional objectives to students, he or she serves to clarify expectations and allows students to attend to the important aspects of instruction.

Instructional objectives also provide the standards that students can use to evaluate their progress toward desired outcomes. For the teacher, instructional objectives inform the instructional activities that occur and ...