Objectives and Strategies

General Objective: Learners will be able be familiar with a number of teaching strategies

Specific Learning Objective: Learners will be able to describe the relationships between objectives and teaching strategies.

Content

We have identified a number of teaching strategies, classified them in various ways, and discussed the role of transfer-of-learning. Now, we need to examine the relationships between objectives and teaching strategies. Lets begin by re-examining the cul-de-sac diagram. It suggests that it does not matter where you start and that it does not matter which direction you go around the cul-de-sac.

The verb in the objective will indicate how it will be taught and how it will be evaluated. The rest of the objective dictates the content that will be evaluated. Let us examine one objective and determine how it indicates how the learners will be taught.

For example:

Objective: Learners will be able to use the four-step approach to writing business letters. (The verb is use and it answers the How. The content is business letters and it answers the What.

Use is listed in Bloom's Taxonomy at an application level. Therefore the instructor is responsible for teaching about the four-steps for writing business letters, (knowledge). This might be delivered by a lecture by the instructor.

The learners might be required to retell in their own words the four-steps or they may have to reorder a random list of the steps. (comprehension)

Lastly, the students are required to write a business letter using the four-steps. (application) This might be assignment completed in the class or homework. It might be an individual assignment or completed as pairs or in small groups. Likely the learners would indicate each step throughout the assignment.

It does not matter if the strategies and content are planned first or the evaluation instrument is planned first. The planning is centered around the specific learning objective that is written in the course outline. The course specific learning objective may be broken down into several smaller parts and more specific learning objectives.

All three component (objective, content and teaching strategy, and evaluation) must reflect each other.

Practice

In your own words, describe the relationships between objectives and teaching strategies.