Table 3. 1 factors to consider when planning instruction

Pupil Characteristics

• Ability

• Work habits/socialization

• Special learning needs

• Prerequisite skills

Instructional Resources

• State curriculum mandates

• Time

• Textbook/instructional package

• Other resources (space, aides, equipment)

ity, mode of presentation, and achievement expectations typically differ according to track or level.

Academic ability is also a pupil characteristic that elementary teachers mention prominently when describing factors that influ­ence their instructional planning (Clark and Peterson, 1986; Shavelson and Stern, 1981). In areas such as reading, tracking oc­curs where apparently innocuous reading group labels like "Rob­ins," "Sparrows," and "Owls" in reality represent quite different lev­els of reading ability. Teachers' perceptions of pupils' abilities also influence the amount of material they present to pupils, the way in which they present it, and the complexity of outcomes they expect from pupils.

Although pupil ability influences elementary teachers' instruc­tional planning activities and helps set many instructional parame­ters, it must be tempered by consideration of other important pupil characteristics such as independence, work habits, class participa­tion, and special learning needs. The ebb and flow of elementary school activities from small group instruction to seat work to large group instruction and back again make consideration of such vari­ables necessary. When the teacher is working with one reading or math group, seat work for pupils not in that group both accommo­date their learning abilities and allow them to work independently and quietly.

Planning in elementary school classrooms is generally more com­plex than planning in high school classrooms, not because of the difficulty of the content being taught, but because the pupil char­acteristics that need to be considered are more numerous and dif­ferentiated in the elementary grades. Moreover, the elementary teacher works with different pupil groupings, which use different instructional materials geared to different levels. Plans for each group differ according to the ability, needs, and socialization levels in the group. Further, most elementary school teachers are respon­sible for planning instruction in all subjects, not just one or two as is typical at the high school level.

Instruction will be successful when it takes a group of pupils from where they are to where they should be. In planning what will be emphasized and what pupil outcomes are expected in a subject area, an initial, and extremely important, consideration is the present status and needs of the pupils. What are they ready to learn? What topics have they mastered thus far in the subject? How complex are the instructional materials they can handle? Such ques­tions provide a perspective on the present status and educational needs of the pupils and so can generate helpful information for planning. At the start of the school year, most teachers begin in­struction by reviewing subject matter concepts and skills normally mastered in the prior grade or course. The information gained in such a review provides the most direct evidence of pupils' readiness and need.

It is especially important to assess readiness and need in those subjects that are sequentially organized, such as mathematics, for­eign languages, and reading (Stodolsky, 1988). The structure of these subjects is such that concepts and ideas build on one another; much of what is learned in early stages of instruction is necessary in order to master subsequent concepts and ideas. For example, in or der to do long division problems correctly, a fourth or fifth grader must be able to use the processes of addition, subtraction, regroup­ing, and multiplication. It would therefore make little sense for fifth grade teacher whose pupils did not understand regrouping and multiplication to teach only long division, even though this is the traditional focus of fifth grade mathematics instruction. The needs of the learners, determined largely through sizing up assessments, reviews, and pretests should influence the starting points of instruction and hence the pupil changes the teacher wishes to accomplish through instruction.

In other subjects, such as social studies and high school English the content covered and the pupil outcomes stressed are not as sequential and interdependent as in math, reading, and foreign languages. The "expanding horizons" focus of elementary school social studies texts, for example, moves from "homes and neighborhoods" to "communities" to "regions of America" to "U.S. history" to "world history." For the most part, each year's text and content is distinct from the prior or succeeding year's. In this case, the teacher has more dis creation in planning what to stress.

It is obvious that pupil characteristics such as ability, readiness

ASSESSMENT FOR INSTRUCTIONAL PLANNING 85

independence, and self-control should be taken into account in planning instructional activities. Not to do so would be irrational. However, it is very important to recognize that much of this infor­mation comes to teachers from the initial, sizing up assessments that were made early in the school year. Few formal ability tests are given in schools, especially in elementary schools. Still fewer formal assessments of independence, self-control, and work habits are made in classrooms. Yet these are the pupil characteristics teachers consider to be important and rely on in planning instruction. The largely infor­mal sizing up assessments made at the start of the school year are im­portant not only for organizing a classroom society, but also for plan­ning the instruction that pupils will receive. This is all the more reason to strive to make such assessments valid and reliable.

Instructional Resources

The instructional resources a teacher has available for use in the classroom influence not only the nature of the instruction that can be provided but also what learning outcomes can be sought. The word "resources" is used here in its broadest sense to include factors such as available supplies, equipment, space, aides or volunteers, texts, and time. Each of these resources influences the nature of in­struction that can be offered and, therefore, the pupil achievements that can be pursued.

A biology teacher may wish her class to learn about the internal organs of the frog by having each pupil perform a dissection. How­ever, if the school has no biology laboratory and no dissecting equipment, the teacher must forgo this objective. Another teacher may wish to set up a learning center in his classroom to pursue pu­pil outcomes related to independent study and research skills. How­ever, if the classroom is too small to find a quiet corner, or if the resource materials needed to supply it are not available, the teacher will be unable to implement the center and its related objectives. Similarly, if the classroom is too small to divide the class into groups of four or five pupils and permit each to work in relative quiet, undistracted by other groups, many kinds of instructional activities cannot be implemented. Classroom aides or volunteers who read to pupils, work with small groups, or serve as "microscope moms" during a unit on the microscope can free the teacher to plan and pursue enrichment activities that might not have been possible otherwise.

State Curriculum Mandates In an attempt to narrow and focus instruction and learning, a growing number of states and commu­nities are mandating that teachers cover prescribed topics in their instruction (Airasian, 1987). Authors of recent reform reports on the status of education in the United States advocate the definition of a common, core curriculum for all students (Boyer, 1983; Na­tional Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983; National Gov­ernors' Association, 1986). As a result, many states have developed statewide curriculum guides which list topics to be taught in school subjects at all grade levels. The expectation is that teachers will use these curriculum guides as a minimum target when planning and carrying out instruction. In a very real sense, the guides are meant to standardize the curriculum across schools and remove some of the discretion the classroom teacher once had in planning the topics and outcomes of instruction.

In many cases, the impact of the mandated curricula is rein­forced by statewide selection of textbooks and by state-mandated testing programs. Textbooks are selected and approved on the basis of whether they emphasize the statewide topics and outcomes. Only approved texts can be purchased with public funds. Statewide test­ing programs further serve to focus teachers on the curriculum guides by providing public reports of how pupils in particular schools performed in comparison with pupils in other schools. This public reporting of a pupil performance puts additional pressure on teachers. Thus, the mandated curriculum guides influence teacher decisions when they plan instruction.

Time Another important, though often overlooked, resource that greatly influences planning for instruction is time. There is never enough time to instruct pupils in all the relevant skills and concepts in a subject area. Thus, time is one of the resources every teacher must allocate. In planning, the teacher must match the amount of time available for instruction with the amount of time needed to teach each desired pupil outcome. This matching also must be weighed against the importance of each topic as a prerequisite for next year's instruction.

Implicitly, each teacher makes decisions about what to stress based on the instructional time available. When a teacher skips a concept, unit, or chapter in a textbook, the teacher is saying, "All other things being equal, I prefer to spend my limited instructional time focusing on other topics and skills that are more important." While teachers make decisions about the allocation of instructional time on a daily basis, it is in the last few weeks of the school year that decisions about what to stress and what to pass over become most apparent. Somehow, the end of the school year always seems to come before all the planned topics can be taught. At this point, explicit decisions about how to allocate scarce time are made: "We must cover subtraction of fractions before the end of the year, but we can omit rate, time, and distance word problems"; "If I don't finish parts of speech this year, next year's teacher will be upset— I'll take the time from the poetry unit to work on parts of speech"; "I don't think the concept of supply and demand can be presented well in the time available, so I'll omit it and use the time to focus on the workings of the Federal Reserve System." Time is a limited resource, and this has important consequences for planning in­struction.

Instructional Materials A final resource that influences what is taught and learned in classrooms is the textbook used in the subject area. More than any other resource, the textbook determines in­structional plans. A number of studies have shown that a large part of student's learning time (up to 75 percent) and a large part of the teacher's instructional time are focused on textbook use (Eisner, 1979; Farr and Tulley, 1985; Stodolsky, 1988). Regardless of what might be the ideal way to define the classroom curriculum, the text­book is of primary importance in influencing what is taught in the schools. Eisner explains why this is so.

The textbook and its partner, the workbook, provide the curricular hub around which much of what is taught revolves. Their utility is straightforward. First, they provide the level of content expertise that few teachers possess. Second, they organize that content around topics that usually have some logic; in other words, the task of sequencing material for educational purposes is largely done—or at least believed to be done. Third, the textbook provides both teachers and pupils with a kind of secu­rity: it lays out the journey that teachers and students will take; one knows what follows what and where it all ends. Fourth, the textbook, which usually has a teacher's version, gives teachers the questions they should ask pupils, provides test items they can use, suggests activities students can engage in, and provides teachers with correct answers. The workbook that frequently accompanies the textbook pro­vides a simple way to keep children engaged, and if the culture of the classroom is such that using a workbook is an expected aspect of the school day, it is not likely that the teacher will meet much resistance, (p. 27)

Heavy teacher reliance on textbooks for instructional planning can be further understood when the fact that most elementary teachers must deal with four or five subjects each day is considered. Although teachers at the middle and high school levels usually do not teach as many different subjects, they do teach different vari­ants of a subject to groups at different grade levels and of different ability. Most textbooks are really instructional packages which elab­orate and enhance the text material with resources such as chapter outlines, main ideas, intended pupil outcomes, teaching guides, les­son plans, pupil activities, follow-up exercises, worksheets, posters, maps, duplicating masters, lesson reviews, and chapter tests. Most of these resources are intended to help teachers plan and carry out instruction. Basically they tell the teacher how to present and use the text material.

Thus, given the variety of instructional demands on all teachers, it is not surprising that so many rely heavily on textbooks and text­book resources to help them decide what will be taught, in what or­der, and with what intended pupil outcomes. In a real sense, the text publishers have made it possible for the instructional materials they sell to direct teachers in planning, providing, and assessing in­struction. However, to use text materials uncritically and without reference to time and pupil needs is to abdicate one's own assess­ment and decision making responsibilities.

The preselected learner outcomes, content, and organization of topics, as well as the supplementary resources that accompany most textbooks, make them a seductive mechanism for planning and car­rying out instruction. But the pupil outcomes, topics, and organiza­tion in textbooks do not always take into account the status and needs of every group of pupils, nor do they reflect completely the educational outcomes sought by states and communities. Further, other classroom resources such as space and available materials fre­quently dictate deviations from the topics taught and the sequence followed in the textbook.

Although textbooks are undoubtedly the most important re­source teachers use when planning and carrying out their instruc­tion, this does not mean that textbooks should be relied on exclu­sively. It is incumbent on all teachers to assess the status and needs of their pupils, the curriculum requirements of their state or com­munity, the sequential demands of the subject matter, and the re­sources available when planning instruction for their pupils. In the end, the decision about what to emphasize rests with the individual classroom teacher, who knows his or her pupils better than anyone else and who is in the best position to plan and carry out instruction that is suited to their needs.

LESSON PLANS

Once information pertaining to pupil characteristics and instruc­tional resources is collected, the task of the teacher is to weigh and synthesize this information into a set of instructional plans. Addi­tional factors that might be added to this information mix include state- or school-mandated curriculum topics that must be taught, time available for instruction, past experiences with the unit, and other teachers' progress in the curriculum. It is obvious that good instructional planning calls for substantial evidence gathering, syn­thesis, interpretation, and decision making.

The planning assessments that teachers make help them inte­grate important classroom realities into their instruction and pro­vide them with a sense of order and control. Teachers' assessments and the plans that flow from them typically unfold in a cyclical manner (Clark and Yinger, 1979a). Starting with a general idea of what will be done during an instructional unit, teachers move through a series of successive elaborations and specifications. Im­portant to this process, and indicative of the way assessments are made, is the fact that teachers typically try to visualize their teaching activities as they might occur in the milieu of their own classroom. In a very real sense, teachers mentally rehearse the learning activi­ties they contemplate using in the classroom. In visualizing instruc­tion, teachers weigh their pupils' characteristics and the nature of the teaching activity planned. There is relatively less emphasis placed on the specific changes that instruction is intended to pro­duce in pupils.

The resulting lesson plans typically consist of a list of activities to be performed during instruction. In general, the basic unit of plan­ning is the instructional activity (Clark and Yinger, 1977, 1979a; Doyle, 1986), which is made up of (1) the subject matter to be taught, (2) the materials that pupils will work with, and (3) a de­scription of what the pupil and teacher will be doing during the les­son. An instructional activity typically directs the teacher and/or pu­pil to "do this," "say this," "write this," "ask this," or "show this." The actual format that teachers use to record their lesson plans var­ies, but the examples below give a general idea of their appearance.

Fifth grade social studies unit on explorers:

1. Discuss goals of Spanish explorers.

2. Show pupils routes on world map.

3. Review differences between French and Spanish explorers.

4. Chart accomplishments of Pizzaro, Cortes, Columbus; pupils will enter charts in notebooks.

Third grade math:

Group 1: Continue with logic problems; do worksheet #4 indepen­dently; discuss solutions in group.

Group 2: Reinforce regrouping in subtraction; review process; work on p. 34, #1^t on overhead; assign #5-15 independently.

Seventh grade science:

Introduce concept of matter. Get examples of matter from students. Define three states of matter. Students classify matter examples. Changing state of matter.

H. W.: Read first two sections of ch. 3, do probs. 1-6.

The plans string together a series of instructional activities each of which encompasses a relatively short period of time, usually ten to twenty minutes, during which pupils are arranged in a particular way or focused on a particular process. Examples of common class­room activities have been cataloged (Berliner, 1983; Stodolsky, Fergerson, and Wimpleberg, 1981) and include seat work, reading circle, recitation, discussion, lecture, demonstration, checking work, independent study, audiovisual presentation, tests, giving instruc­tions, student reports, games, and silent reading. Clearly, some of these activities are more common in certain subject areas and grade levels than others. Notice, for example, that it is not unusual in el­ementary school classrooms for more than one of these activities to be going on simultaneously (e.g., seat work and reading circle), but that it is rare for multiple activities to occur simultaneously in high school classrooms.

Different activities are emphasized in different subject matters (Stodolsky, 1981; Stodolsky, 1988). For example, in many elemen­tary classrooms, there are striking differences in the way mathemat­ics and social studies instruction are planned and carried out. Math lessons are distinguished by recitation and long seat work assign­ments, with the emphasis on practicing skills. Social studies lessons tend to have fewer recitation segments and contain more small group sessions in which the teacher goes around the room helping different groups (Stodolsky, 1981). Because math is considered a basic skills subject, more instructional time is spent on it, topic coverage is more uniform across teachers, and more emphasis is placed on hold­ing pupils accountable for their learning than in social studies.

At the high school level, there is more day-to-day uniformity in the activities that characterize instruction than in the elementary school. Plans are constrained to a fifty- to sixty-minute class period, while in the elementary classroom the teacher has greater discretion as to the time devoted to a given lesson. In high school, the bulk of instruction centers on a relatively limited set of activities: lecture and discussion.

In planning instruction it is important to recognize that teacher behaviors and teacher-pupil interactions vary according to the na­ture of the activity used during instruction (Gump, 1967). Recita­tion activities, for example, provide teachers with great control over interactions, keep all pupils involved, and maintain a fairly constant lesson pace. There is little opportunity for pupil questions or lengthy interactions with individual pupils. A teacher engaged in small group instruction has little opportunity to interact with pupils engaged in seat work, except to reprimand them and focus them on their assigned tasks. On the other hand, during supervised seat work the teacher is freed from the need to maintain lesson pace and involvement and can more readily provide individual pupils with the help and attention they require. The type of activity in a lesson plan also affects pupil behavior and engagement in the learning process. Gump (1967) found that pupil involvement in learning was greatest for teacher-led small groups and least for pupil reports and presentations.

In planning day-to-day lessons and activities, one important con­sideration is the nature of pupil needs vis a vis the lesson activities. If a few pupils have had difficulty understanding concepts or pro­cesses presented in a prior lesson, the teacher might select a super­vised seat work activity to afford the opportunity to work more closely with those pupils. When reinforcement and pupil engage­ment are needed, recitation might be a useful lesson activity.

To summarize, the instructional plans most teachers use typically consist of a series of activities in a subject area. When teachers pre­pare lesson plans, they think about both what they will do during instruction and what the pupils will do; lesson plans usually include lists of instructional activities. While lesson plans say what the teacher will do and what activities pupils will engage in, they rarely indicate what pupils are to learn from the activities. This practice is unfortunate, since it focuses attention on the means of instruction, but not on its ends. Activities are not ends in themselves, but a means to an end. The real purpose of instruction is to change pu­pils' behavior and enable them to do things they could not do be­fore instruction. To help keep the real purpose of instruction in mind, it is recommended that teachers include in their lesson plans statements that describe the behaviors that instructional activities are intended to help pupils learn. Such statements are called edu­cational objectives and specify the pupil accomplishments that are to result from instruction.

EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES

Educational objectives are statements that describe the behaviors pupils can perform after instruction. Other names for educational objectives are "instructional objectives," "learning objectives," "per­formance objectives," "behavioral objectives," "curriculum objec­tives," and "pupil outcomes." As with teaching activities, educa­tional objectives are determined by considering pupils' needs and the instructional resources available. Although the information a teacher needs to state objectives is available during the planning process, objectives are rarely included in teachers' lesson plans. In­struction certainly can go on without educational objectives, but it is likely to focus on moment-to-moment activities rather than on the more important and long range issue of what pupils ought to learn from instruction. This lack of focus on pupil outcomes creates problems when a teacher tries to assess the progress of instruction and, when instruction is completed, what pupils have learned.

Educational objectives serve a number of important functions in the instructional process. They identify intended pupil outcomes; they provide direction for the teacher in selecting instructional ma­terials and activities; they provide the basis for assessment; they are useful reminders to the teacher of what the goals of instruction are; they help communicate to parents, pupils, administrators, and other teachers what is expected of the pupils. Objectives serve many important instructional and assessment functions.

Stating Educational Objectives

There are many ways to state educational objectives (Gronlund, 1970; Nitko, 1983), but not all of them convey clearly a teacher's intended pupil outcomes. Consider the sample statements in Table 3.2 and determine their usefulness as educational objectives. Re­member, the intent of stating an educational objective is to identify an expected pupil outcome that is sufficiently clear to (1) help select appropriate instructional methods and resources, (2) communicate to others the purpose of instruction, and (3) help plan the construc-

TABLE 3.2 SAMPLE STATEMENTS OF EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES

1. The Civil War

2. American government

3. The laws of motion

4. Analyze

5. Understand

6. Appreciate

7. Worthy use of leisure time

8. Pursue lifelong learning

9. Become a good citizen

tion of assessment techniques to determine whether pupils have learned what was taught.

Statements 1, 2, and 3 all have the same deficiency. Each de­scribes a body of content that will be covered in instruction, but each omits information about what the pupils will be expected to do with the content. In sample objective 1, will pupils be expected to state the causes of the Civil War? Identify three significant battles and tell how each influenced the outcome of the war? Match gen­erals' names to the battles they fought? List the strengths and weak­nesses of the North and South at the start of the war? Explain the role of cotton as a cash crop in precipitating the war? Similarly, in sample objectives 2 and 3, what are pupils expected to know about American government or the laws of motion? Merely describing the content to be covered is insufficient to select instructional materials, communicate objectives to others, or help plan assessment proce­dures to determine pupil learning. What is missing, and what needs to be included with a description of content is an indication of the behavior a student will be expected to perform after instruction. What should the pupil be able to do with the information provided about the Civil War? Identify causes of the war, match generals to battles, cite strengths and weaknesses of the two sides? And what should a pupil be able to do after being taught about the laws of motion? Write the laws from memory, match examples to particular laws, solve problems using the laws, relate the laws to planetary mo­tion? Without this kind of information, a content description alone is of little value.

Statements 4, 5, and 6—"Analyze," "Understand," and "Appreci­ate"—also have a common problem: they provide no reference to any content. Thus, when one sees these statements, the first ques­tion that one asks is, "Analyze, understand, and appreciate what?" Just as a content description by itself lacks clarity because it does not include a desired pupil behavior, so too does a behavior by itself lack clarity if there is no reference to a targeted body of content. Analyze what: A poem, an argument in favor of capital punish­ment, a newspaper editorial? Understand what: A short story, the laws of relativity, the implications of the Treaty of Versailles? Be­haviors need a content referent to make them clear enough to serve as educational objectives.

There is an additional problem in statements 4, 5, and 6. Words like "analyze," "understand," and "appreciate" are themselves un-specific. They imply different behaviors to different people. For ex­ample, when one teacher says her objective is to have pupils under­stand the basic principles of economics, she means she wants her pupils to be able to explain the principles in their own words. An­other teacher also wants his pupils to understand the basic princi­ples of economics, but when he uses the term "understand," he means that he wants them to give at least one real life example of each principle studied. A third teacher, who also seeks to have her pupils understand basic economic principles, wants them to be able to distinguish between correct and incorrect applications of the principles.

If the three teachers met and discussed their objectives, each would say to the others, "I want my pupils to understand basic eco­nomic principles." The others would respond, "So do I." The first teacher would depart thinking her colleagues were teaching their pupils to explain principles in their own words. The second teacher would depart thinking his colleagues were teaching their pupils to give real life examples of economic principles. The last teacher would depart thinking her colleagues were teaching their pupils to distinguish correct and incorrect applications of the principles. Each would be completely wrong about the others' intentions, plans, in­struction, and assessment. Notice also that each teacher would have claimed that he or she was teaching pupils to understand the basic principles of economics, but because of the different meaning each attached to this general objective, each would have used very dif­ferent materials and instructional methods to attain the objective and different assessment activities to determine pupil learning.

The misunderstandings could have been avoided if the teachers described their intended educational objectives in terms of the ac­tual behaviors they expected their pupils to perform after instruc­tion: explain principles in their own words, give real life examples of the principles, or distinguish correct from incorrect applications of the principles. These more specific descriptions remove the am­biguity that accompanies the term "understand." In stating educa­tional objectives, it is better to describe the specific behavior the pu­pil will perform than it is to use more general, ambiguous terms like "understand," "apply," "analyze," "know," "appreciate," "learn," "synthesize," and "realize." Thus, when stating objectives, it is better to say "explains the importance of conserving natural resources" than to say "realizes the importance of conserving natural re­sources"; better to say "translates Spanish sentences into English" than to say "understands Spanish sentences"; better to say "can dif­ferentiate subjects and predicates" than to say "knows about sub­jects and predicates"; better to say "states three differences between good and bad art" than to say "appreciates art." In each example, the first statement describes a pupil behavior in terms that can be observed and assessed, while the second uses ambiguous terms ("knows," "appreciates") to describe pupil behavior.

Statements 7, 8, and 9—"Worthy use of leisure time," "Pursue lifelong learning," and "Become a good citizen"—certainly name desirable objectives. No one could object to schools seeking to de­velop these capabilities in their pupils. The problem with these statements as educational objectives, however, is that they are too general and complicated to be achieved by pupils in a single subject area or grade level. These outcomes take years to foster and, stated in such a general manner, provide the classroom teacher little guid­ance regarding the activities and materials that could be used to at­tain them. In order to be of use to a classroom teacher, these broad goals must be broken down into more specific, more immediate be­haviors that could reasonably be attained in the classroom. For ex­ample, while it may not be possible to teach pupils to become good citizens in a single school year, it is possible to expect them to learn to obey school rules, settle disputes by voting, protect school prop­erty like books and desks, and so on. These more immediate out­comes can be attained in a school year, although they represent only a small part of what it means to be a good citizen. Unless general statements are broken down into more specific pupil outcomes, they are of little use to the classroom teacher in selecting materials, communicating instructional intentions to others, or helping deter­mine suitable techniques to assess pupil learning.

In summary, the minimum requirements for well-stated educa­tional objectives are (Gronlund, 1970):

1. They describe a pupil performance that is the result of instruc­tion.

2. The pupil performance is stated in terms of a definite, observ­able behavior that the pupil will perform.

3. The content on which the pupil will perform the behavior is stated.

4. The specificity of the objective is such that it can be expected to be attained in a reasonably short period of time.

A simple model for preparing educational objectives is:

The pupils can (observable behavior) (content).

Here are examples of appropriately stated educational objectives.

The pupils can list three causes of the Civil War. The pupils can solve word problems requiring the sum of two num­bers.

The pupils can write a correctly formatted and punctuated business letter.

The pupils can translate a French paragraph into English.

96 CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT

The pupils can count to 20 aloud.

The pupils can list three differences in the climates of Canada and Mexico.

The pupils can write balanced chemical equations.

The pupils can state the main idea of a short story.

The pupils can explain the water cycle in their own words.

Each of these objectives indicates a behavior pupils will be expected to perform after instruction, and each indicates the content on which that behavior will be performed. Stating educational objec­tives in this way provides a clear description of what changes in­struction is to bring about in pupils. The behaviors that the instruc­tional plans, materials, and activities should focus on are known.

There is other information that can be added to statements of ed­ucational objectives (Nitko, 1983). For example, some people prefer to include information about the materials the pupil will be given to work with in performing the educational objective. Others like to add information about how well the pupil must perform the objec­tive in order to indicate mastery of it. Such extended objectives would be written thus:

Given ten word problems requiring the sum of two numbers, the pupils can solve at least eight correctly.

Given a diagram of the water cycle, the pupils can explain in their own words what the water cycle is with fewer than two errors. Given a French paragraph of less than twenty lines and a diction­ary, the pupils can translate the paragraph into English in Five min­utes with fewer than six errors.

The core of these extended objectives is identical to their briefer counterparts above. The behavior to be performed and the content on which it is to be performed are the same regardless of the form in which the objective is written. The extended objectives provide more details about the conditions under which the behavior must be performed and the level of performance the pupil must show Extended objectives take more time to prepare than their simple counterparts. Also, the complexity of material pupils can handle and the level of performance that will be considered satisfactory an often not known until instruction begins and the teacher gets sense of pupil interest, grasp of lessons, and learning difficulties For these reasons, and in spite of the extra information they contain, most teachers do not need to state extended objectives. The simpler model suffices in most instructional situations.

Questions about Educational Objectives

Educational objectives are the starting points in the instructional process because they identify the purpose and end product of in­struction in terms of pupil behaviors. Teachers arrive at their edu­cational objectives by assessing their pupils' status and needs, the structure of the subject matter to be taught, state or local mandated objectives, and the resources available for instruction, particularly the textbook. This information is synthesized by the teacher into a set of educational objectives appropriate to the class. A few com­mon issues and questions about educational objectives require at­tention.

1. Is It Necessary to Write Down One's Educational Objectives? If you are a beginning teacher, you will probably be required to write ob­jectives for your lessons; there usually is no choice in the matter be­cause your supervisor or principal will wish to see them. Even if you are an experienced teacher, the process of writing down objectives is useful. Nevertheless, many experienced teachers feel that it is not nec­essary for them to write down their objectives because they know them well and because it's easier and less time-consuming to carry this infor­mation around in their heads than to write it down. Besides, they say, they've been teaching long enough to know what they're doing from day to day, so why bother to write down their objectives.

In responding to this view, it is important to remember that ed­ucational objectives are not descriptions of what a teacher will do during instruction each day; they are descriptions of what pupils are to get out of the instruction. Educational objectives describe changes desired in pupils, not teacher activities. Each year a teacher confronts a new group of pupils, with backgrounds, needs, and abilities different from those of pupils in previous years. After a teacher assesses the status and needs of the new learners, objectives from prior years will need to be modified, added to, or eliminated. Under normal circumstances, one would not expect a set of educa­tional objectives to change dramatically in a single year, since classes themselves rarely do. However, some changes are likely with each new group of pupils. Regardless of how many years he or she has been teaching, the teacher should assess the suitability of existing educational objectives for each new group of pupils.

In addition to changes in pupil characteristics from year to year, the instructional programs of schools also change because of new requirements or expectations. Periodically, old textbooks and mate­rials are retired and new texts and materials introduced into the classroom. The new requirements, expectations, and textbook con­tent lead to reassessment and possible revision of existing educa­tional objectives.

Annual assessment of existing educational objectives in light of pupil or instructional material changes is an important part of any teacher's assessment responsibilities. What is most important is that teachers do this reassessment. Whether or not they subsequently write down their objectives is less important than the fact that they have considered pupil needs, state or community requirements, and instructional materials and decided on a set of objectives that is suitable for this year's pupils. As noted, it is unlikely that there will be dramatic changes in objectives from one year to the next, but some modifications will probably be needed.

To summarize, there are many advantages to writing out the in­tended student outcomes. Once the school day begins, teachers are caught up in the incessant flow of classroom activities. Their day is a neverending series of episodes that demand continual reaction and permit little opportunity for reflection. In the day-to-day swirl of class­room activities and the spontaneous give and take of instruction, it is too easy to lose sight of what one is striving to do. A written record of educational objectives becomes a ready reference that can be consulted when planning instruction, reviewing the results of instruction, and planning assessments. Without this reference, it is difficult to keep fo­cused on the objectives chosen at the start of instruction.

2. What Are Higher Level Educational Objectives? Over the past ten years, the focus in education has been on developing pupils' ba­sic skills in reading, writing, and mathematics. The emphasis has been on fundamental objectives that all pupils were thought to need to function successfully in American society. In recent years, as scores on many basic skills tests have risen (Airasian, 1988), there have been calls to up the instructional ante by requiring schools to emphasize more than the basic skills. Many people now want to put more effort into teaching higher level skills. We saw in Chapter One that the cognitive behavior domain can be divided into different levels. We saw that the lowest and simplest level involved behaviors that were limited to memorizing and remembering facts, dates names, events, principles, and poems. These behaviors are called "lower level behaviors." Other levels of the cognitive domain re quire pupil behaviors that are more complex than simple recall and memory. These are called "higher level behaviors" and include activities such as analyzing information, applying facts and rules to solve new problems, comparing and contrasting two objects, and synthesizing disparate pieces of information into a single, organized idea (Stiggins, Griswold, and Wikelund, 1989). Here are a few examples of higher and lower level objectives. In each case, the lower level objective calls only for memorization, while the higher level objective calls for behavior more complex than memorization.

Lower level: The pupil can write a definition of each vocabulary word. Higher level: The pupil can write sentences using each vocabulary word cor­rectly.

Lower level: The pupil can match quotes from a short story to the characters who said them.

Higher level: The pupil can contrast the motives of the protagonist and the antagonist in a short story.

Lower level: The pupil can write the formula for the Pythagorean theorem. Higher level: The pupil can use the Pythagorean theorem to solve word prob­lems involving the length of ladders needed by the fire department.

Higher level educational objectives have an intuitive appeal that lower level objectives do not; they are synonymous with thinking and reasoning behaviors, while lower level objectives conjure im­ages of pupils writing and reciting from memory. Because of this, there is a tendency to overvalue higher level objectives and under­value lower level ones.

While all teachers should try to teach their pupils to master higher level behaviors, and should include some higher level objec­tives when planning their instruction, there are two cautions that should be considered. First, it must be remembered that most higher level behaviors depend on pupils memorizing some facts, rules, laws, and principles as prerequisites to analyzing, applying, and reasoning. Lower level objectives are the building blocks on which higher level objectives depend. Second, higher level objec­tives call for more complex forms of pupil behavior than lower level behaviors. This means that higher level behaviors will take a longer time to teach and learn than lower level behaviors. It also means that the methods of instruction for teaching higher level skills are less well developed than those for teaching lower level skills. In fact, serious questions are being asked about how much is known about instructional techniques for fostering higher level educational ob­jectives (Cuban, 1984; Fredericksen, 1984). These cautions should be kept in mind when stating objectives and planning instruction for higher level educational objectives.

3. Should I State Affective Objectives for My Pupils'? All teachers want their pupils to display desired affective behaviors. They want pupils to show respect for others, try hard to learn what is taught, and value the rules of the classroom society. Teachers also hope pu­pils will develop an interest in the subject area and enjoy learning about it. Affective objectives are no strangers to classrooms.

Rarely, however, are such objectives stated explicitly by the class­room teacher or assessed with formal assessment procedures.

There are two reasons for this. First, many affective objectives like interest and attitude are thought to be private, idiosyncratic behav­iors that are not necessarily appropriate for the class as a whole. The focus in classrooms is more upon cognitive and psychomotor objectives, where there is less debate about the suitability of desired outcomes. Moreover, it is thought that pupils' subject matter mas­tery ought to be judged independently of their interest in or enjoy­ment of the subject. Cognitive and psychomotor subject matter ob­jectives are viewed as important and reasonable to expect all pupils to attain; affective objectives are felt to be more private.

Second, affective outcomes are difficult to assess with formal pro­cedures like paper-and-pencil questionnaires, pupil interviews, and structured observations. Privacy questions arise, and affective as­sessment can be viewed as a means of obtaining evidence that could bias a teacher against a pupil who didn't express interest and a pos­itive attitude. Additionally, for older pupils it is easy to fake re­sponses and give the teacher an incorrect portrait of one's interest, motivation, and attitude toward the subject area.

The fact that affective objectives are rarely stated or formally as­sessed, however, does not mean that they are not assessed at all. Teachers notice affective behaviors in classrooms and often com­ment on them to individual pupils or the class as a whole. Pupils know that they are much more likely to draw the teacher's ire for not trying, ignoring rules, or being disrespectful than they are for doing poorly on a test or paper. Jackson (1990) describes this phe­nomenon well.

As every school child knows, teachers can become quite angry on occasion. Moreover,
every school child quickly learns what makes teachers angry. He learns that in most
classrooms the behavior that triggers the teacher's ire has little to do with wrong answers or other indicators of scholastic failure. Rather, it is violations of institutional
expectations that really get under the teacher's skin. Typically, when a student is
scolded by the teacher it is not because he has failed to spell a word correctly or to
grasp the intricacies of long division. He is scolded, more than likely, for coming into
the room late, or for making too much noise, or for not listening to directions, or for
pushing in line. Occasionally, teachers do become publicly vexed by their students'
academic shortcomings, but to really send them off on a tirade of invective, the
young student soon discovers, nothing works better than a partially suppressed giggle during arithmetic period

The teacher's evaluation of personal qualities of his students typically deals with such matters as general intellectual ability, motivational level, and helpfulness in maintaining a well-run classroom, Such qualities are commonly mentioned on cu­mulative record folders in terse but telling descriptions. "Johnny has some difficulty with third grade material, but he tries hard," or "Sarah is a neat and pleasant girl. She is a good helper." (pp. 22—23)

Teachers' informal assessments tell them about the affective char­acteristics of their pupils, such as who is trying hard, who cares about the subject area, who is a good school citizen, who is a sneak, and who will cut corners whenever possible. Such information is ob­viously helpful to teachers.

Most report cards have a place where the teacher can provide a general assessment of a pupil's affective performance. At elemen­tary grade levels, teachers are generally asked to rate a pupil's con­duct, effort, and school citizenship, which provide a teacher's per­ceptions of a pupil's affective characteristics. At the middle and high school level, teachers can often select computer-coded com­ments which reflect affective characteristics to append to a pupil's report card. In general, although affective educational objectives are important and are assessed informally by teachers, rarely are such objectives written down by teachers as part of their lesson plans or overall course objectives.

4. How Many Objectives Should I State In a Subject Area? The an­swer to this question depends in part on the time frame being con­sidered. In general, the longer the period of instruction being con­sidered, the more objectives one can expect pupils to attain. Thus, one might have sixty, seventy, or more objectives for an entire year of instruction in a subject area, but only eight to ten for a textbook chapter, and one or two for a single lesson. The number also de­pends on the complexity of the behaviors named in the objectives. As noted previously, higher level objectives usually deal with com­plex behaviors that take longer to teach, so fewer higher level ob­jectives can be taught in a given instructional time period. Thus, it takes longer to teach pupils to interpret graphs than to memorize a formula.

Teachers who have hundreds of objectives for the year's instruc­tion either are expecting too much of themselves and their pupils or are stating their objectives too narrowly. For example, some teach­ers state very specific objectives for a common skill such as writing the names of the states and their capitals: "The pupils can write the name of the state capital of Kentucky"; "The pupils can write the name of the state capital of Nevada"; "The pupils can write the state capital of North Carolina."...It is more appropriate to state a gen­eral objective: "The pupil can write the names of the capitals of the states in the United States."

On the other hand, teachers who have only five or ten objectives for the school year are either underestimating their pupils or stat­ing their objectives too broadly (e.g., "Solve chemistry problems," instead of the more specific and appropriate "Solve gas law prob­lems," "Solve problems involving quantities of chemical reactants and products," and "Solve problems related to radioactive decay").

There is no recommended number of educational objectives. The guidelines suggested above are intended to set broad parame­ters which each classroom teacher can apply to his or her specific situation.

5. Are There Any Cautions I Should Keep in Mind Regarding Educa­tional Objectives? Educational objectives are stated before instruc­tion begins based on a teacher's consideration of the status and needs of the pupils, the nature of the subject matter, existing state or community mandates, and instructional resources available. They are meant to guide both instruction and assessment. They are not meant to be followed blindly and slavishly when circumstances suggest the need for instructional adjustments. Many teachers wrongly view educational objectives as a set of blinders, which, once selected, are intended to lock in instruction with no tolerance or de­viation permitted. This is not the case.

Objectives provide direction to the instructional and assessment processes. Without explicit objectives it is difficult for many teach­ers to maintain a consistent direction in their instruction and assess­ment. But objectives are written before instruction starts and thus cannot be based on exhaustive information about pupil needs and status. Sizing up information gathered about pupils before instruc­tion provides a good approximation of status and need, but is hardly a perfect indicator. Neither is it possible to anticipate the flow of classroom activities and the topics or situations that will arise during instruction.

For these reasons, teachers must exercise discretion regarding how closely they will follow the objectives they set prior to the start of instruction. If information gained during instruction indicates pupils are not ready to master a given objective, the teacher must decide whether the objective should be abandoned or whether time should be taken to teach pupils the readiness skills they need. Sim­ilarly, it often happens during instruction that pupils become in­trigued or excited by a concept or problem. Usually these moments cannot be anticipated and seem to happen spontaneously: an off­hand remark leads to a question, which leads to another, and all of a sudden the pupils are all interested and motivated to learn about the topic. But what if the topic is not included in a teacher's educational objectives? What should the teacher do? Teachable moment; such as these, when pupils are perhaps more ready to learn about the topic than they ever will be again, are relatively rare and not to be squandered. Prestated educational objectives are not meant to stifle such moments. Unless the topic is frivolous or has little redeeming educational value, it ought to be pursued immediately, regardless of whether it is relevant to one of the teacher's educational objectives In short, teachers must guard against following a set of educational objectives too rigidly.

Teachers must also be on their guard in stating or selecting edu­cational objectives. The easiest objectives to state are those that in­clude lower level behaviors: list, match, select, name, cite, define, identify, repeat and recite, and so on. It is more difficult to describe student performances for more complex behaviors: e.g., analyze, synthesize, apply. As a consequence, there is a temptation to state the vast majority of one's educational objectives in terms of lower level, memory-oriented behaviors. Therefore, many teachers end up with lists of educational objectives which all require the pupil to name and identify. Few subject areas can be covered adequately with objectives that rely exclusively on memory behaviors. Table 3.3 shows lists of behavioral terms that can be used to describe perfor­mances more complicated than recall. These terms can help in stat­ing higher level objectives.

TEXTBOOK OBJECTIVES AND LESSON PLANS

Teachers at the high school level usually must state their own edu­cational objectives and develop their own lesson plans. At the ele­mentary and middle school levels, the situation is quite different. High school courses usually rely on a single textbook as the main

instructional resource. At the elementary and middle school levels, however, instructional materials are not confined to a single text­book, but usually comprise what may best be termed an instruc­tional package, which contains a textbook and a large array of sup­plementary materials.

In most elementary and middle school instructional packages, ed­ucational objectives and lesson plans for each chapter or section of a chapter are provided in the teacher's edition of the text. For ex­ample, a grade one social studies textbook is comprised of seven units. One of the units is entitled "The Earth You Live On" (Reque, 1985) and is divided into six lessons, each of which has its own set of educational objectives. Following is a list of those objectives, each of which begins with "The pupils can":

Lesson 1

Understand the meaning of high and low

Compare basic land forms in pictures

Give examples of ways in which people use land

Lesson 2

Identify rivers, lakes, and oceans in pictures Give examples of ways in which people use water

Lesson 3

Understand that air is everywhere

Identify wind as moving air

Give examples of ways people use wind

Lesson 4

Contrast wet and dry places Contrast cold and hot places

Lesson 5

Give examples of seasonal changes

Name the seasons in sequence

Describe seasonal changes where they live

Lesson 6

Give examples of kinds of homes that fit certain environments Compare and contrast their communities with those in the pictures

One of the objectives for lesson 2 is, "The pupils can identify rivers, lakes, and oceans in pictures." The following "Teaching Suggestions" appear in the teacher's edition of the text to help teachers plan instruction for the objective.

Identifying Bodies of Water. Tell pupils that nothing on Earth can live without water. Then say that today they are going to learn about places on Earth where wa­ter is found. Read the words on pages 14—15 aloud. As you read each sentence, ask pupils to use the picture to tell what each body of water looks like. Then ask how they would know whether a body of water was a river, a lake, or an ocean. Point out that rivers flow from one place to another. Lakes are relatively still and have land all around them. Oceans are much bigger than rivers and lakes, and the water in them is salty. On the chalkboard, list the differences pupils identify among the bodies of water (Reque, 1985, p. 15)

Consider the following materials from the teacher's edition of a fourth grade science textbook chapter entitled "The Earth's Atmo­sphere" (Barufaldi, Ladd, Moses, Schneider and Schneider, 1984, p. T 140A-T 1771). The chapter objectives are stated at the begin­ning of the chapter, each beginning with "The students should be able to":

Describe the earth's atmosphere and explain why it is necessary for life State that air has mass, takes up space, and is made of molecules Name several gases in the atmosphere and state the importance of each Define air pressure as the force that is caused by air molecules pressing down on an object

Describe the effects of the temperature of the air and the amount of water va­por in the air on air pressure

Describe the motion of air caused by differences in air pressure Explain how the sun's heat can produce winds State ways to keep the air from becoming polluted

These objectives are divided among eleven lessons that cover the material in the chapter. Each lesson has the same format: (1) a title (e.g., "The Air Around Us," "What Air is Made of," "Air Pressure at Work"); (2) a list of the main ideas in the lesson (e.g., "The atmo­sphere produces the earth's weather and sustains life" "Cold air is denser than warm air, and it exerts more pressure"); (3) the objec­tives each lesson is intended to foster; and (4) a lesson plan.

The lesson plans provided for the teacher are quite specific and detailed. For example, the introductory lesson for "The Earth's At­mosphere" has as its main idea, "The atmosphere is a huge mass of gases covering the earth" and as its sole objective "The student should be able to describe the atmosphere as a blanket of air that covers the earth." The lesson plan suggests that teachers

1. Introduce the chapter by asking the students whether they know what is shown in the photograph on page 140. (the earth's atmosphere as seen from outer space)

Ask one student to read aloud the first paragraph on page 141. Explain that air i< found almost everywhere, even dissolved in water. Ask the students whether they car think of a place where there is no air. (outer space)

2. Write the word atmosphere on the chalkboard and have the class pronounce it. Tell the students that atmosphere is the science word for the air around them Then have the students read the second paragraph. Discuss with them how the atmosphere affects people. Ask them to think of ways not mentioned in the text. (I produces weather, keeps the earth from getting too hot or too cold, provides air for. breathing and for plants to make food, etc.) (p. T 141)

Each lesson in the chapter contains lesson plans similar to the above. Notice the specificity of the plan and the step-by-step way it lays out the instruction.

A fifth grade mathematics text (Duncan et al., 1985) divides it chapters into daily lesson plans with accompanying suggestions for instruction. For example, a daily lesson plan for the unit on fractions has as its objective "Find a fractional part of a number." T< accomplish this objective, the following instructional plan is offered in the teachers' edition of the textbook.

Display 8 pencils or books. Then divide them into two groups, with the same number in each. Point out that each group contains 4 pencils. Write: 1/2 of 8 is 4.

Put the 8 pencils together again and ask a student to divide them into 4 groups, with the same number in each. Ask what fraction of the 8 pencils is in each group and how many pencils are in each group. Write: 1/4 of 8 is 2.

Ask what fraction of the 8 pencils you will have if you take up 3 of the group, and how many pencils there will be altogether in the 3 groups. Write 314 of 8 is 6. Relate this activity to the model at the top of the students page. (p. 184)

The daily lesson plan goes on to direct the teacher to check the pupils' understanding by having them orally answer questions in the exercises in their texts.

Most elementary and middle school texts that have been published in the past ten years provide sets of educational objective and lesson plans for each chapter, lesson, unit, or story. The objectives can be useful to the classroom teacher. They give a focus t instruction and suggest useful learner outcomes that can result from it. They can also provide focus for test construction and other assessment activities. There is also much in the lesson plans that can be used by the teacher. In fact, given the specificity of these text embedded lesson plans, a teacher might be tempted to rely exclusively on them for his or her lesson plans. In a real sense, the text publishers have made it possible to let the instructional material determine the aims and activities of classroom instruction. To 1 them do so, however, is to abdicate one's assessment and decision making responsibilities, which require careful assessment of the textbook and accompanying instructional materials.

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