Objectives
EDUC 3100
What is an Objective?
 A statement of what
we want
students to know, do, and feel.
 A teacher must be able to ASSESS the objective
in some way.
Synonyms: Intended Learning Outcome, Achievement
Target, Standard, Indicator
Bloom’s Taxonomy
In 1956, Benjamin Bloom
headed a group of educational
psychologists. Together, they
developed a classification of
levels of thinking behaviors
thought to be important in the
processes of learning.
 Bloom and co. actually identified three domains of
educational activities.
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Cognitive: mental skills (Knowledge)
Affective: growth in feelings or emotional areas (Attitude)
Psychomotor: manual or physical skills (Skills)
 Best known is the Cognitive taxonomy as follows
Knowledge
 observation and recall of information
 knowledge of dates, events, places
 knowledge of major ideas
 mastery of subject matter
Knowledge
Comprehension
 understanding information
 grasp meaning
 translate knowledge into new context
 interpret facts, compare, contrast
 order, group, infer causes
 predict consequences
Comprehension
Knowledge
Application
 use information
 use methods, concepts, theories in
new situations
 solve problems using required skills
or knowledge
Application
Comprehension
Knowledge
Analysis
 seeing patterns
 organization of parts
 recognition of hidden meanings
 identification of components
Analysis
Application
Comprehension
Knowledge
Synthesis
 use old ideas to create new ones
 generalize from given facts
 relate knowledge from several areas
 predict, draw conclusions
Synthesis
Analysis
Application
Comprehension
Knowledge
Evaluation
 compare and discriminate between
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ideas
assess value of theories,
presentations
Evaluation
make choices based on reasoned
Synthesis
argument
Analysis
verify value of evidence
Application
recognize subjectivity
Comprehension
Knowledge
Bloom’s Mnemonic
 Karen
 Can
 Add
 And
 Subtract
 Easily
Evaluation
Synthesis
Analysis
Application
Comprehension
Knowledge
Bloom’s Taxonomy - Revised
Original Terms
New Terms
• Evaluation
•Creating
• Synthesis
•Evaluating
• Analysis
•Analyzing
• Application
•Applying
• Comprehension
•Understanding
• Knowledge
•Remembering
(Based on Pohl, 2000, Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn, p. 8)
Change in Terms
• The names of six major categories were changed from noun to verb
forms.
• As the taxonomy reflects different forms of thinking and thinking is an
active process verbs were more accurate.
• The subcategories of the six major categories were also replaced by verbs
• Some subcategories were reorganized.
• The knowledge category was renamed. Knowledge is a product of
thinking and was inappropriate to describe a category of thinking and was
replaced with the word remembering instead.
• Comprehension became understanding and synthesis was renamed
creating in order to better reflect the nature of the thinking described by
each category.
(http://rite.ed.qut.edu.au/oz-teachernet/training/bloom.html (accessed July 2003) ; Pohl, 2000, p. 8)
• Create a mnemonic for the revised Bloom’s
Taxonomy
Creating
Evaluating
Analyzing
Applying
Understanding
Remembering
Affective Domain
Attitudes
 Receiving:
 Awareness, willingness to hear, selected attention.
 Responding
 Active participation on the part of the learners. Attends and
reacts to a particular phenomenon. Learning outcomes may
emphasize compliance in responding, willingness to respond, or
satisfaction in responding (motivation).
 Valuing
 The worth or value a person attaches to a particular object,
phenomenon, or behavior. This ranges from simple acceptance
to the more complex state of commitment. Valuing is based on
the internalization of a set of specified values, while clues to
these values are expressed in the learner ín overt behavior and
are often identifiable.
Affective Domain (cont.)
Attitudes
 Organization
 Organizes values into priorities by contrasting different
values, resolving conflicts between them, and creating
an unique value system. The emphasis is on
comparing, relating, and synthesizing values.
 Internalizing values (characterization)
 Has a value system that controls their behavior. The
behavior is pervasive, consistent, predictable, and most
importantly, characteristic of the learner. Instructional
objectives are concerned with the student's general
patterns of adjustment (personal, social, emotional).
Psychomotor Domain
Skills
 Perception
 The ability to use sensory cues to guide motor
activity. This ranges from sensory stimulation, through
cue selection, to translation.
 Set
 Readiness to act. It includes mental, physical, and
emotional sets. These three sets are dispositions that
predetermine a person’s response to different situations
(sometimes called mindsets).
 Guided Response
 The early stages in learning a complex skill that includes
imitation and trial and error. Adequacy of performance is
achieved by practicing.
 Mechanism
 This is the intermediate stage in learning a complex skill. Learned
responses have become habitual and the movements can be
performed with some confidence and proficiency.
 Complex Overt Response
 The skillful performance of motor acts that involve complex
movement patterns. Proficiency is indicated by a quick, accurate,
and highly coordinated performance, requiring a minimum of
energy. This category includes performing without hesitation, and
automatic performance.
 Adaptation
 Skills are well developed and the individual can modify
movement patterns to fit special requirements
 Origination
 Creating new movement patterns to fit a particular situation
or specific problem. Learning outcomes emphasize
creativity based upon highly developed skills.
Webb’s Depth of Knowledge
DOK 1: Recall and Reproduction
Recall or recognition of a fact, information
(definitions, terms, dates, etc.), concept, or
procedure
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Identify who, when, what where, and why
Recall facts, terms, concepts, trends, generalizations and
theories
Use a variety of tools
Recognize or identify specific information
Identify specific information
Define
Describe (recall, recite or reproduce information)
Identify purposes
DOK 2: Application of Skills and Concepts
Use of information, conceptual knowledge, following
or selecting appropriate procedures, two or more
steps with decision points along the way, routine
problems, organizing/displaying data
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Describe or explain how or why
Give an example
Describe and explain issues and problems, purposes, patterns,
sources, reasons, points of view or processes
Compare
Classify, sort items into meaningful categories
Convert information from one form to another
DOK 3: Strategic Thinking
Requires reasoning, developing a plan or sequence of steps to
approach a problem; requires some decision making and
justification; abstract and complex; often having more than one
possible answer
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Use concepts to solve problems
Use evidence to justify
Propose and evaluate solutions to problems
Recognize and explain misconceptions
Cite evidence and develop a logical argument for concepts
Reason and draw conclusions
Disseminate among plausible answers
Analyze similarities and differences in issues and problems
Apply concepts to new situations
Make connections across time and place to explain a concept or big idea
Recognize and explain patterns
Make and support decisions
Evaluate effectiveness and impact
DOK 4: Extended Thinking
An investigation or application to real work; requires time to
research, think, and process multiple conditions of the problem
or task non-routine manipulations, across disciplines/content
areas/multiple sources
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Connect ideas and concepts within the content area or among content areas
Examine and explain alternative perspectives across a variety of sources
Describe and illustrate how common themes and concepts are found across
time and place
Make predictions with evidence as support
Develop a logical argument
Plan and develop solutions to problems
Analyze and synthesize information from multiple sources
Complex reasoning with planning, investigating or developing a product
Apply and adapt information to real-world situations
Participation in simulations and activities requiring higher-level thinking
Cognitive Demand
 Cognitive demand relates to how much thinking is
called for by the students for a specific task. For
example, routine memorization involves low
cognitive demand, no matter how advanced the
content. Applying, analyzing, and evaluating
concepts involves high cognitive demand, even for
basic content. Both types of cognitive demand are
associated with student performance and are
necessary in the classroom.
 Solve geometric proofs using the appropriate
theorems.
APPLICATION
High cognitive demand
 Explain the “melting pot” philosophy.
COMPREHENSION
Low cognitive demand
 Compare and contrast enrichment versus
acceleration in terms of readiness, academic
benefits, and social and emotional adjustment for
precocious youth.
ANALYZE
High cognitive demand
 Create a poem using metaphors
SYNTHESIS
High cognitive demand
 Define the associative property of addition
KNOWLEDGE
Low cognitive demand
 Justify the selection of materials for an insulated
box.
EVALUATE
High cognitive demand
So What Do We Use This For?
 To write objectives
 To help us match objectives to
assessment methods and instructional
tasks
You Try!
 Identify the level of cognitive demand of the given
objectives from the state core and put them on the
appropriate shape.
 Then put each objective on the correct level of
Bloom’s taxonomy on the board.
Homework
 Bring the state core to class on Monday for the topic
you want to use for your TWS
 Remember your Contextual Factors paper is due
Monday

Identify at least three contextual factors that influence student
learning – positive or negative. Use one student, one
classroom, and one schoolwide or community factor. Then
provide suggestions for how you will respond to the factor.
Typed, 1-2 pages, double spaced
Review Activity: Bloom’s Taxonomy
 Select three indicators from the state core
 Determine the cognitive demand of the indicators
and write them on the appropriate shape.
 Place the indicators on the correct section of Bloom’s
taxonomy on the board.
Backwards Design
1. Identify
Desired
Results
OBJECTIVES
2. Determine
Acceptable
Evidence
ASSESSMENTS
3. Plan of
Action
LESSONS
Why “backward”?
 The stages are logical but they go against habits
 We’re used to jumping to lesson and activity ideas - before
clarifying our performance goals for students
 By thinking through the assessments upfront, we ensure
greater alignment of our goals and means, and that teaching is
focused on desired results
Unpacking the Standards
STOP AND WORK
 Get out your core curriculum and find the Standards,
Objectives, and Indicators that you want to teach for
your TWS.
 Write them on your green rounded rectangle (lower
half)

Ex: Standard 2, Objective 3,
b. Describe how weather and forecasts affect people's lives.
c. Predict weather and justify prediction with observable
evidence.
“Big Ideas” are typically revealed via –
 Core
concepts
 Focusing themes
 On-going debates/issues
 Insightful perspectives
 Organizing theory
 Overarching principle
 Underlying assumption
Big Ideas: Examples
 Words
are power.
 Reading is more than just the words on a
page.
 Relationships between quantities can be
represented by graphs, tables, and equations.
 Healthy nutrition practices influence all
aspects of our lives.
 All life is interrelated as evidenced by the
differences and similarities among species.
More Big Idea Examples
 Great
artists often break with conventions to better
express what they see and feel.
 Price is a function of supply and demand.
 Friendships can be deepened or undone by hard
times
 History is the story told by the “winners”
 F = ma (weight is not mass)
 Math models simplify physical relations – and even
sometimes distort relations – to deepen our
understanding of them
 The storyteller rarely tells the meaning
of the story
You’ve got to go
below the surface...
to uncover the
really ‘big ideas.’
Unpacking the Standards
Predictions about the weather
influence people’s lives.
Standard 2, Objective 3,
b. Describe how weather and forecasts
affect people's lives.
c. Predict weather and justify prediction
with observable evidence.
Unpacking the Standards
Predictions about the weather
influence people’s lives.
Understand that the elements of weather can be observed,
measured, and recorded to make predictions.
Standard 2, Objective 3,
a. Identify and use the tools of a meteorologist (e.g.,
measure rainfall using rain gauge, measure air pressure
using barometer, measure temperature using a
thermometer).
b. Describe how weather and forecasts affect people's lives.
c.
Predict weather and justify prediction with observable
evidence.
STOP AND WORK
 What “Big Idea” are the listed standards,
objectives, and indicators based on?
 Write your “Big Idea” for your TWS on the
top half of your rounded rectangle. Talk with
your group about it.
 Write your overall unit objective.
Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions
 What knowledge, skills, and dispositions
follow from the “Big Ideas” and the specific
indicators to be taught?
 What “teachable chunks” can be described?

“Expert blindspot”
Identify the Cognitive Load
 Low cognitive load objectives - what we want
students to know (rectangles)
 High cognitive load objectives - what we
want students to be able to do (ovals)
Write as an Objective
1.
Start with a verb
-
2.
3.
4.
5.
Use your list of Bloom’s or DOK verbs
Make sure each objective includes only one action
and one content part
State as a student outcome (not what the teacher
will do)
Focus attention on the Big Idea and are part of the
core curriculum
Include high and low cognitive load objectives
a.
Identify and use the tools of a meteorologist (e.g., measure
rainfall using rain gauge, measure air pressure using barometer,
measure temperature using a thermometer).
Label a rain gauge, barometer, and thermometer
Use a rain gauge to measure rainfall
Use a barometer to measure air pressure
Use a thermometer to measure temperature
b. Describe how weather and forecasts affect people's lives.
Describe how weather and forecasts affect people's lives.
c. Predict weather and justify prediction with observable evidence.
Create a three day weather forecast
Support your weather forecast using observable evidence
Reading is more than just words on the paper.
 Read the assigned book fluently.
 Know about community helpers.
 Learn to be good friends.
 Explain the parts of the digestive system helping
students focus on individual organs.
 Understand how to do long division.
 Read a story and write the main idea and then
illustrate the character development using a foldable
book.
 The economic history in America before the civil war
contributed to the development of that war.
Prioritizing Desired Results
Worth being
familiar with
Must know and be
able to do
Enduring
Understanding
Big Idea
Unpacking the Standards
Low cognitive
load objective
High cognitive
load objective
High cognitive
load objective
Big Idea
High cognitive
load objective
Low cognitive
load objective
Unit Objective
Core standards, objectives,
indicators
Low cognitive
load objective
High cognitive
load objective
STOP AND WORK
 UNPACK each indicator from the core and
write an objective using the Bloom’s verbs.
Make sure each objective is chunked so that
you can teach it in one lesson. Separate the
objectives into low and high cognitive load.
Write on the appropriate shape.
Unpacking the Standard Assignment recap
 Identify all the core indicators you will cover.
 Specify the “Big Ideas” that students will acquire.
 Break out the indicators into teachable chunks
separated by high and low cognitive load.
 Rough draft due in class next time so we can work
on them.