Educational Psychology

Educational Psychology

Instructional Strategy: Helping Students in Identifying Human Skeleton

Instructional objectives are a critical piece of effective instruction because they clearly identify and communicate the intended outcomes for instructional events. When a teacher communicates the instructional objectives to students, he or she serves to clarify expectations and allows students to attend to the important aspects of instruction. Instructional objectives also provide the standards that students can use to evaluate their progress toward desired outcomes (science-coach-site.mcdowell.groupfusion.net).

For the teacher, instructional objectives inform the instructional activities that occur and the assessments used to evaluate student progress. Accordingly, instructional objectives are written prior to instruction during the planning stage, are used to determine the instructional procedures used during instruction, and provide the guidelines for practice- and assessment-related activities (science-coach-site.mcdowell.groupfusion.net).

During the planning phase, teachers write the instructional objectives that will determine the course of instructional events. Good instructional objectives are characterized as specific, measurable, observable, and short term. Specific objectives are unambiguous and clearly state what the learner should be able to do. In writing objectives, teachers should avoid the use of words such as know, understand, and analyze because these words do not convey a specific, unambiguous action. Instead, objectives should be written with verbs that clearly state the observable action that students will be able to carry out at the end of instruction. For example, rather than stating that a student should “know” certain material, a good instructional objective may state that the student should be able to define, list, label, or match specific concepts from the material. Rather than stating that a student should be able to “analyze” the material, a good instructional objective may state that the student should be able to diagram, differentiate, question, or summarize the material (Krathwohl, 2004).

Task 1: Organize and assemble a paper skeleton, Mr. Bones, attaching it to a piece of paper. Keep student work as evidence of work on the standards.

Task 2: Label two kinds of joints. Explain how one works or how it allows the body to move. Name two important reasons why humans have bones. Keep student work as evidence of work on the standards.

Task 3: Interpret stimulus and response data recorded from an experiment. Keep student work as evidence of work on the standards.

Task 4: Describe movement of animal skeleton. Keep student work as evidence of work on the standards.

Flesh is the biological tissue of a person or animal located between the skin and the bones. In ordinary speech, it typically contrasts with bone, as in the merism flesh and bone. It mainly refers to skeletal muscle and associated fat, though it includes all other internal soft tissue. The softness of a human body is generally attributed to flesh, although muscles can also give a notion of hardness (science-coach-site.mcdowell.groupfusion.net).

Affective Objectives

The instructional objectives in the affective domain concern attitudes, appreciations, values, and emotions such as enjoying, conserving, and respecting. The affective domain is generally considered important in education and training, but it is a domain in which educators have had difficulty ...