Chapter Summary

  • Chapter Summary
    • This chapter focused on school curriculum and determining instructional intent. The main points associated with specific objectives were as follows:
    • Learning Objective 1: Describe the seven steps to teaching excellence.
      • Effective teachers must diagnose; plan the course; plan instruction; guide planned activities; evaluate; reflect; and, when necessary, follow up.
      • The three-step backward design model is an alternative to the seven-step model.
    • Learning Objective 2: Define curriculum and describe the backward design model for curriculum design.
      • The curriculum of a school consists of all the planned and unplanned experiences students undergo in the school setting.
      • Curriculum mapping can be used to identify gaps in the curriculum being taught.
      • The backward design approach to instructional planning offers an alternative view to the traditional way of determining intent. The backward design begins with the establishment of enduring understandings.
      • The three stages of the backward design are as follows: Identify desired results, determine acceptable evidence of competency, and plan learning experiences and instruction.
    • Learning Objective 3: List and explain the areas that must be addressed in curriculum planning and the Marzano framework for effective teaching.
      • Content selection should be planned so that instruction fulfills the needs of students, society, and the structure of the subject.
      • Marzano offers 10 questions that should be asked in a logical planning sequence for successful instructional design.
      • The curriculum pattern can be subject centered, student centered, or an integrated combination of both forms.
      • A course plan should remain flexible so needed modifications can be made during the year.
      • Chapter topics are often combined into units that are then sequenced to form a time line for instruction.
    • Learning Objective 4: Compare and contrast the purposes and characteristics of educational goals, informational objectives, and instructional objectives.
      • Objectives express your instructional intent to students and specify how students will demonstrate their learning in observable, measurable ways.
      • Objectives set the framework for your instructional approach and the evaluation of student learning. They serve an important communication function.
      • Objectives hold students and teachers accountable for student learning.
      • Objectives specify your instructional intent to students. They specify what your students should be able to do following instruction. Objectives are finite and measurable.
      • The specificity of instructional intent varies from broad educational goals to very narrow specific objectives.
    • Learning Objective 5: Describe the four elements of a properly written instructional objective.
      • The actions called for by educational goals are overt, nonmeasurable behaviors,
      • whereas the actions called for by informational and instructional objectives are overt and measurable.
      • Instructional objectives consist of four components: the performance, the product, the conditions, and the criterion.
      • Informational objectives specify only the performance and the product; the conditions and criterion are usually not specified.
    • Learning Objective 6: Write educational goals and objectives representing different levels of the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains.
      • Objectives can be written at any of the levels within the three domains of learning: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. Each domain is arranged in hierarchical order from simple to complex.