Week Four

Project Three - The Turning Point
     I refer to the objectives as the turning point because up until now we have been analyzing our situation. We have been identifying a need, balanced with our individual interests, analyzing the characteristics of who our learners will be, and thinking about what we need to do.
     Now we very specifically identify, perhaps literally write down, what we want the learners to do. With all the analysis in our minds, we identify what is our purpose, first in general in a single statement, and then specifically individual behaviors and actions. These are our objectives, and it is around these objectives that we will build our activities and strategies, and ultimately look back and determine our successes and failures. It is important to select these objectives carefully.
     As you discovered in your reading, there are three primary types of behavior, called domains, we may choose to modify in the learner:


Cognitive, what the individual knows or understands, over simply put, in the brain or mind;


Psychomotor, the physical movements of the body such as in sports and exercise; and


thirdly, Affective, simply put, one's attitudes.




     As you read, objectives in each domain will be written differently, of course, because different verbs define thinking, action and attitude. In all domains, the objective will written with a form of a verb; something the learner will do. The format may vary from domain to domain.
     Objectives will be used in the future of the instructional design as we focus our activities, our materials and supplies, our environment and our assessment around these objectives. What activities will support the learner in meeting the objective? What materials and environment will support the activity? How will we assess the learning or measure how well the objective is met? That's where we are headed.

Objective Project - Assignment Three

     The final project is a complete lesson designed using the tools we are exploring in our text and journal readings.
     This project is merely one phase of that final project. It is a phase that will give us the opportunity to collaborate on our ideas before we move forward in the misleading direction. As you write your objectives, you will be reflecting on your goal, your needs, your audience, your setting and all features of your analysis. Later we will use these objectives to create our strategies, activities and assessment tools. So very carefully and thoughtfully design your objectives.
     Submit your objectives to the instructor by May 3. Any supportive information about your goal and your task and audience analysis which would help understand the objectives would be helpful. All this will ultimately be built into your final project. In the week following May 3 we will review the objectives and prepare our strategies.

     The following website is a good review and paraphrase of what you read in the text. I believe it could be very helpful at this point: Educational Taxonomy