Module II: Lesson Organization (Cont.)

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7 | Page 8 | Page 9 | Page 10

Using Your Objectives to Build Your Lesson Plan

Now that you have built the foundation of your lesson, you are ready to begin the rest of the lesson planning process. Knowing two things-your objectives (what you want students to do), and the level of Bloom's Taxonomy at which students should perform -- makes the rest of the lesson planning process much easier.

Later in this section, we will articulate seven steps of lesson planning that will help ensure a well-designed and executed lesson. Before that, however, we must emphasize the very essence of lesson planning, which builds on what we have learned about learning objectives and Bloom's Taxonomy:

Learning objectives, learning activities and test question items (or other evaluation mechanisms) should be aligned with respect to the cognitive level the instructor has identified.

Why is this so important? If we think of our objective as a destination all students should reach, then the learning activities represent the map we have charted to get there. The map you make and the specific route you create depend on your teaching style and goal. You may take your students to that destination directly, you may take a back road and linger around some other concepts -- but eventually that path should take them to the final learning destination. If our learning activities aren't in line with our original objective, learning may still take place, but it's likely that all students won't end up at the desired destination.

Example 1

Let's look at an example that reflects a good alignment between the learning objectives and the classroom activities. We will wait until a later module to explore the relationship with the test question item. This example comes from a hypothetical Computer Applications course.

Objective:

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to use MS Word and Excel to create a table with five specific features.

Learning Activity:

Working in pairs, students take data provided by the instructor to make charts in Word and Excel. The charts include the five specific features outlined by the instructor. As you can see in this example, the instructor identified an objective at the application level of Bloom's Taxonomy. Students are expected to know enough about both programs to be able to make a table in each. (You may have thought this was an objective at the synthesis level because the students were "creating" a table. But because of the nature of the programs, students were really applying the features and techniques of making a table, which is more an application of their knowledge. )

The classroom activity was appropriate for this objective. Students were asked to work together to make a table. The instructor even specified five features she was expecting to see in their work. Both the objective and the activity asked students to apply the information they had learned. Later, the instructor could create an assessment that also reflects the application level of thinking.

Let's look now at an example where the classroom activity does NOT match the learning objective. It comes from a hypothetical Psychology course.

Learning Objective:

By the end of this lesson, the students will be able to identify five major symptoms of depression.

Learning Activity:

Students will read a case study of a depressed patient, and devise a treatment based on the symptoms presented.

In this example, the instructor has made a logical connection within the CONTENT of his lesson -- there is a relationship between the symptoms of depression and its treatment. However, there is a disconnect between what the instructor has identified in his objective and what she has asked students to do with the information. The instructor wrote his objective at the knowledge level -- by asking students to identify symptoms of depression, students can demonstrate that they understand this material.

However, the classroom activity was too advanced for this objective. Students were asked to create a treatment plan, which involves not only knowledge about symptoms, but also the ability to apply that knowledge, and analyze a case. To ask students to devise a treatment plan is too great a jump -- from knowledge to synthesis, without any time to practice the levels in between.

Perhaps a more appropriate activity for this learning objective would be to ask students to read a case study and identify the symptoms of depression described in the case.

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7 | Page 8 | Page 9 | Page 10