As one of the more interesting parts of your activity in this mini course on the
writing of goals and objectives in a moment I'd like to introduce you to
Dr. Sam Postlethwait of Purdue University. This mini course series is based on the model
established by Dr. Postlethwait for biology students. However the approach
has been adopted by almost every subject discipline, and it's spread throughout
the world. As you probably know Professor Postlethwait is well-acquainted with the
use of objectives. Objectives provide one of the foundation stones for the mini
course model which he's developed for use in his audio tutorial approach to
biology. Dr. Postlethwait, since you've been publicly associated with the formal
use of objectives for so many years, certainly since the introduction of the
AT approach around 1961, you can certainly be regarded as an expert in
the use of objectives. So in your opinion what are the major reasons that
instructors have when they decide to use performance or behavioral objectives?
Well of course you have been developing a lot of instructional materials
yourself and you know how important behavioral objectives are for
structuring good programs and programs of learning but the primary reason well
really two things one is for the for the student and the second one would be for
the for the teacher now for the student it's a matter of trying to enable the
student to know what what is expected of him so the student can work together
cooperate with you the teacher to achieve the appropriate goals the
student needs to know what these goals are student doesn't really have any
reason to know these goals until somebody communicates them to them
that's why they come to a university because they're at the University of
people who know what botany ought to be and then they can communicate this to
students and students then can can move toward this secondly with the teacher a
teacher needs to know precisely what he expects of a student many teachers teach
with some vague ideas in their own mind as to what they would like their student
to achieve but when you begin to write these and put them down on paper so that
you know precisely what you expect then you can give more assistance now
sometimes I think of objectives a little bit like the FIFA students who were just
inundated with subject matter and they have to sort out that which is of
consequence to them and I think of the analogy of somebody who can't swim being
thrown into a body of water and they expend a tremendous amount of energy and
they find around and splash water all over but if that same amount of energy
could be directed to the activities of swimming in a specific kind of way they
will will achieve and so it's just a matter of the difference not a matter of
difference in expenditure of energy but a matter of a difference in doing it
with some knowledge of how to how to accomplish the end end product what do
you think these objectives are ought to be shared with the students
Undine that would be the primary purpose of writing objective would be to share
them with the students so that the students would know and could work
together with you to achieve certain specific goals now it's not that it
doesn't help this that teacher indeed the teacher can look at the students
performance and then go back and modify his instructional program to to assist
the student there but the primary purpose must be well the primary purpose
of the whole activity of Education must be to help students learn and if that is
really true then we need to develop guidelines for
each of us both students and and the teacher how closely do you think the
test items ought to relate to the objectives because you know sometimes
there's a criticism that if the objective and the test item are worded
the same then the instructor is teaching to the tests well I think this has
probably been one of my greatest difficulties because most of us have
been conditioned over the years that the reason for an educational system is to
eliminate certain students rather than to help students learn now I know that
some people would not agree with me but I do believe that we set up quotas for
failure and and focus on that instead of helping helping students achieve now one
of the things then that we must do if we write objectives is to give credit to
students achieve these objectives and I'll never forget the young lady who
came to my office one time and she saw this sign that said objectives and she
said what's this and I said the objectives and she pulled out one of the
sheets and she she looked at it and she said Devon
well you don't let the students see this do you and I said why sure she said my
goodness they weren't at all no you see if they learned at all then you would be
forced to give them a reasonable grade and most of us are not conditioned this
way and so even if we write objectives there's a real tendency on the part of
most of us who teach to write questions that will sort them out and eliminate a
certain percentage yes you can keep them off balance just a little while while
they try to psych you out most of them sign a new figure the first
couple of tests are gonna be the psyching out time then they can start
performing you so then you say what if there's there's another problem then we
have is that students condition to that kind of approach to education have
difficulty in making the transfer to where you know saying here is what I
expect you to learn let's work together for you to arrive there and then I'll
give you a credit this the there's a credibility gap and here and you
reinforce that credibility gap if you say these are the objectives the student
achieves these and you test him over something else oh maybe it's last
question do you think then that instruction ought to be limited to the
objectives if you said this is what we're gonna cover then that's it well in
my experience no way has the instruction been limited to the objectives and it
would only be this if the teacher set out to do that and that only and I find
the students exposed to quantities of subject matter learn lots of things that
are not listed in the objectives now our objectives then ought to represent a
minimal amount of achievement that we will accept as mastery of that
particular subject and so the other information that we make available to
our students because they are human beings and curious they will go ahead
and learn additional things and and my experiences taught me that that this is
literally so there has been some research in Berkeley for example that
has indicated that given an instructional program it's possible to
write a number of different kinds of objectives which seems to be a bit
contrary to the way most of us talked about in writing objectives but it is
literally so that an instructional program is is perceived by different
students from different perspectives and with different backgrounds and so they
will accumulate different kinds of information so all we're talking about
then is the minimum achievement level that it in we will we will accept well
thank you Sam would you like to make any final comment to the participants in the
workshop about your feeling the value of objectives and reasons for
using them well I just like to say that I have used objectives now for a great
many years and the first major advance in in helping my students learn was when
I begin to provide them with objectives the instructional strategies are of some
value this is true but they are really of little consequence if one can know
where you expect to arrive and then provide instructional systems not a
instructional system but a great variety of pathways for them to arrive at this
particular point having done this I have seen the results of this statistically I
suppose it could very well be supported but I don't think that it needs to be
supported statistically if I want to take a trip across the country first
thing I do is get a map and and and I have my goals identified I'm much more
likely to arrive there if I know where I'm going then if I don't that's that's
I don't have to support that statistically thank you Sam in a few
minutes we'll return to this tape to see what a little bird had to tell Sam about
how to write an objective
Sam I've heard you say that most teachers have objectives at least to
some degree so this doesn't qualify objectives to be anything unusual or
different then oh no this it's an old idea and as long
as we've had teachers they had something in mind that they were trying to
accomplish and so objectives didn't start as something recent it's a long
it's been a long time that people have thought about what they want students to
learn oh yeah you're well-known for your ability to clarify concepts by using
examples from your own experience so I'm sure that there must be something that's
happened to you that you could share with us that would help describe just
what you mean and when you use the term behavioral objectives well maybe yeah
maybe a little rim story will will help by not long ago I was out in the woods
and there was a little rim that was Carolina wren that was just chattering
away and it was pretty clear to me that this wren had an objective in mind
number one he wanted me to depart number two he wanted me to do it immediately
and number three he wanted me get clear out of his domain well the success of
his behavior his activity was pretty much dependent on whether or not I
departed and whether or not I did it quickly and whether or not I got clear
out of of his area here so I think that a lot of us who are teachers are
somewhat like this we we have a of activities that we go through but
it's not necessarily true that the invader me there the learner perceives
precisely what the the other person had in mind I guess megger has helped us
identify some of the things that ought to go into an objective and he suggests
here and I just read what he what he says here he says that they we should
identify specific terminal behavior of the learner define the desired objective
our behavior by describing the important condition under which a behavior will be
expected to occur and then specify how well the learner must perform for his
effort to be considered acceptable now I think that megger has delineated for us
some really important components of good objectives that's not to say that there
aren't other kinds of objectives but these are excellent well then what what
is the main difference in what maker has said and what most of us do well most of
us do know what we would like our students to learn but to take the rim as
another case in point all this chattering here if it didn't communicate
to me and he did communicate to me I had a good idea what he had what he had in
mind but there might have been other ways other than all this noise to have
gotten me to behave like he wanted me to behave for example I've seen them quail
that they act as if they were hurt and they lead you from the area there is
some question I guess about whether he needed to do anything I might have
reached that objective if it just been quiet I would have gone ahead gotten out
of the territory but there is also the another point here I thought I owned
that area and I didn't know that I had to share
this necessarily with with the rent and so he might have been asking something
of me that he had no right to ask and so I think that it's important then for us
to get our objectives out and written so that we can attack them and see if they
are right and fair in fact just yesterday I had nine of my students go
over the entire set of objectives that I have for my course and they were going
over these with this in mind asking first whether or not they really
communicated so that they they could understand what I had in mind and then
secondly whether this was fair whether this was something that I had a right to
ask of them so I think that this puts teaching in a in a different context
than what we normally have done and puts it out to where we can now analyze those
things which we're doing and seeing whether these are of value so I take it
then in objectives you wouldn't use terms like understand and know and these
fuzzies well it's those kinds of words will not convey specifically enough to
the student to know when they have have achieved and so well I don't go in for
specific wording of objectives very much still the person who reads the objective
must be able to know whether or not they have achieved by reading the objective
and and comparing that with what they are able to not to do I got to be able
to interpret what you mean exactly thank you Sam that gives us a useful
overview of what maker has to say and also we've enjoyed discussing with you
your feelings about objectives as well as what should go into them and
especially thank you for the illustration are there any other
comments that you'd like to make to the viewers before we close off this
exploration into objectives well thank you I'm real pleased to have had an
opportunity to be with you I think that the writing of objectives will have a
major impact on the way any teacher teaches it's not the only thing that
makes you teach well and it's and again people may have objectives that are not
written and they're perfectly valid the student can find these out in some sort
of way maybe from other students or from other sources such as looking at old
tests but it seems to me that a logical thing would to be just forthrightly
trying to allow the student to know what you expect and then help him achieve this.
[Bird calls]
This brief video presentation is part of your activity in mini course number one
of the in-service faculty development workshop series. I'm Al Mizell, developer
of this series and I'd like to introduce you to some comments made by
Dr. K. Patricia Cross who's well known for her concern with the need to improve today's
instructional practices. Although the improvement of teaching is a worthy goal
for all educators it's particularly important if we hope to meet the
educational needs of the large number of new students that Dr. Cross has
described so well in a paper presented at concurrent general session one of the
31st national conference on higher education sponsored by the American
Association of higher education in Chicago on March 8th 1976. Dr. Cross
developed an interesting hypothetical analogy which exemplifies our usual view
of what constitutes a successful teacher. The following visualizations of
Dr. Cross's remarks vividly point out the absurdity of some of our commonly
accepted approaches to the improvement of teaching.
Well, the current efforts to
improve university teaching should be applauded let's make it clear that such
applause should be mild it is hard to know what to do for more vigorous
applause when the reality is that instructional improvement is dependent
upon faculty cooperation one common practice that I am certain we should not
perpetuate is that a pretending that years of experience or even scholarly
reputation are necessarily related to the quality of undergraduate instruction
as college professors are quick to point out in these days of enthusiasm for
granting credit for experiential learning experience alone does not
constitute knowledge yet to many faculty workshop today attempt to legitimize
themselves by opening the conference with an address by respected campus
scholar who knows a lot about his discipline but very little about the
learning process after catching the spirit of a scholar addressing a
workshop on instructional improvement I drafted some remarks for an unlikely day
when the educator might be invited to address a meeting of scientists on there
especially the two scenarios go like this
first the distinguished scholar addresses a faculty development workshop
I have never had a course on teaching and I know nothing about the various
theories of learning I have however taught in the university classroom for
some 25 years while I'm not the new so called teaching methods and techniques
my experience and observations will be helpful and useful to the rest of you
there is of course no real science of education in the sense that experts can
predict with certainty who will succeed in college nor do we know how to create
the most desirable learning conditions therefore it seems to me that I who am
in a classroom everyday can probably be as helpful in understanding learning
asking researchers who never teach in the reality of the classroom while I
admit that there is a certain amount of technology and techniques that can
probably be used to improve the performance of the average teacher like
instructional objectives and teacher evaluation perhaps the master teacher is
not dependent on tools and techniques he has a sensitivity for learning a feel
for when real learning is taking place a teacher who loves his subject and who is
personally experiences the joy of learning is probably in the best
position to create such satisfactions for others now let us parallel this
real-life story with the unlikely scenario in which a distinguished
educator who knows a great deal about teaching and learning is invited to
address a group of scientists in this case
meteorologists who are eager to lend credibility to their work because of
recent criticism of their weather predictions. In this fantasy there is a
familiar exportation of the professor's distinction to the unrealistic hope that
his personal experience with weather conditions will contribute important
insights to their workshop on meteorology. His remarks might go like
this: I have never studied meteorology and I know nothing of the various
theories on the subject I have however lived in the physical world for a good
many years while I have no idea what causes certain weather patterns or how
to induce rain when we need it I do put on snow tires in the winter and carry an
umbrella when it rains I hope my experience and observations will be
helpful and useful to professional meteorologists there is of course no
real science of weather in the sense that experts can predict with certainty
whether it will rain on a given day nor do we know how to bring about the most
desirable weather conditions therefore it seems to me that I who live with the
weather every day can probably be as helpful in understanding it as can
researchers who rarely venture into the reality of a rain storm or a blizzard
while I admit that there are some techniques that can probably be used to
improve the performance of the average meteorologists barometers and weather
maps perhaps the master meteorologist is not dependent on tools and techniques he
has a sensitivity to the weather and perhaps a good arthritic knee a
meteorologist who loves weather who personally experiences the joy of
beautiful days is probably in the best position
to create such satisfactions for others my analogy between the science of
meteorology and the science of teaching was carefully chosen neither is an
infallible science both are better at predicting than at creating desirable
climates for growth nevertheless the weather bureau has a significantly
better understanding of climatic conditions and some farmers would like
to admit and educators and psychologists know a lot more about learning then some
professors would like to admit another hurdle that must be cleared on the way
to the improvement of instruction is the academic distress of experimentation and
innovation it's hard to explain why college professors who are so curious
and experimental and then pursuit of improvements and better answers within
their own disciplines should be so conservative in the practice other
profession I was talking with the college dean redux recently who stated
emphatically that the first priority of colleges should be the improvement of
traditional instruction and only when that was perfected should colleges spend
money to support innovation and experimentation in the midst of being
grateful for his support of the idea that traditional instruction should be
improved I asked myself where General Electric would be if they had decided to
perfect the ice box before starting work on the refrigerator sure I'm in favor of
plugging the leaks and improving the insulation in the old ice boxes but not
at the expense of supporting the development of refrigerators happily
some people have started work on the instructional equivalent of
refrigerators I predict that consumers who have
experienced even primitive versions of the refrigerator may come to demand it
over some pretty high quality ice boxes all of the previous remarks were
adaptations of comments made by Dr. Cross through the assistance of three
participants in the 1976-77 teaching Improvement Program at Purdue
University directed by Dr. Samuel Postlethwait. I would like to thank Gerry
Roberts, Ralph Burns, and Joe Brown for their interpretations
which made these remarks by Dr. Cross so vivid for you.