Management of Instruction: Determining and Formulating Goals/Objectives

In determining and formulating learning objectives, we have the following guiding principles:

1. "Begin with the end in mind." In the context of teaching, this means we must begin a lesson with a clearly defined lesson objective. This way we will have a sense of direction. With this definite objective in mind, we do not lose sight of what we intend to teach. No amount of far-fetched question or comment from our students, no amount of unnecessary interruption or disruption can derail our intended lesson for the day. With a specific objective, our lesson becomes more focused. We become sure of what to teach, how to teach, and what materials to use.

2. Share lesson objective with students. The lesson ought to begin with a statement and clarification of the lesson objective. Make known to the students our instructional objective and encourage them to make the lesson objective their own. This then becomes the students' personal target against which they will evaluate themselves at the end of the lesson. When they do this we are sure that they will become more self-motivated.

3. Lesson objectives must be in two or three domains: cognitive(knowledge), psychomotor(skills), and affective(values). What is most important according to this principle is that our lesson is holistic and complete because it dwells on knowledge and values or on skills and values or on knowledge, skills and values. If we teach only knowledge, this is incomplete for this may not in any way touch and bring about change in the learner. We may end up with more head knowledge that is measured in test then completely forgotten after the test. If we teach skill unaccompanied by values, we may contribute to the formation of people who will have all the skills to oppress, to abuse, and to take advantage of the unskilled and the unlearned. So it is necessary that our lesson gets direction from objectives in two or three domains with the affective domain always present.

4. Work on significant and relevant lesson objectives. With our lesson objective becoming our students' lesson objective too, our students will be self-propelled as we teach. The level of their self-motivation all the more increases when our lesson objective is relevant to their daily life, and hence, significant.

5. Lesson objective must be aligned with the aims of education as embodied in your country's constitution and other laws and on the vision-mission statement of the educational institution of which you are a part. This means that the aims and goals of education as provided for in our laws filter down to our lesson objectives.

6. Aim at the development of critical and creative thinking. If we want to contribute to the development of citizens who are critical and creative thinkers, the types of citizens needed to make democracy, then we should include high-level, divergent, or open-ended questions in our scope. It must be good likewise not to frown on students who question a lot - all for the development of critical and creative thinking.

7. For accountability of learning, lesson objectives must be SMART - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Result-oriented and Time-bound. That way, it is easy to find out at the end of the lesson if we attained our objective or not. Our lesson becomes more focused for we have a concrete picture of the behavior that our students should be able to demonstrate if we realized our lesson objective.