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MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) - Spring 2020: Curriculum Development in Language Teaching (HS-502)
MS Applied Linguistics (Humanities) - Spring 2020: Curriculum Development in Language Teaching (HS-502)
Week 9&10
Lecture 1
Lecturer Ms. Hina M. Ali Curriculum Development in
Department of
Humanities Language Teaching
(HS-502)
WHAT WE WILL COVER?
Throughout the years, the levels have often been depicted as a stairway,
leading many teachers to encourage their students to “climb to a higher (level
of) thought”.
Here are the authors’ brief explanations of these main categories in from the appendix
of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Handbook One, pp. 201-207):
Knowledge “involves the recall of specifics and universals, the recall of methods and
processes, or the recall of a pattern, structure, or setting.”
Here are the authors’ brief explanations of these main categories in from the appendix
of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Handbook One, pp. 201-207):
Synthesis involves the “putting together of elements and parts so as to form a whole.”
Evaluation engenders “judgments about the value of material and methods for given
purposes.”
While each category contained subcategories, all lying along a continuum from
simple to complex and concrete to abstract, the taxonomy is popularly
remembered according to the six main categories.
The lower levels of Bloom’s taxonomy focus on the knowledge that we want
our students to acquire – what we want our students to remember and
understand. The middle levels focus on application and analysis of
information. At the top of Bloom’s taxonomy are tasks that involve creating
and evaluating.
However, we don’t always start with lower order skills and step all the way through
the entire taxonomy for each concept you present in your course.
1.Are lots of your students freshman? Is this an “Introduction to…” course? If so,
many your learning objectives may target the lower order Bloom’s skills, because
your students are building foundational knowledge.
However, even in this situation we would strive to move a few of your objectives into
the applying and analyzing level, but getting too far up in the taxonomy could create
frustration and unachievable goals.
2. Are most of your students juniors and seniors? Graduate students? Do your
students have a solid foundation in much of the terminology and processes you will
be working on your course?
If so, then you should not have many remembering and understanding level
objectives. You may need a few, for any radically new concepts specific to your
course.
Fortunately, there are “verb tables” to help identify which action verbs align with
each level in Bloom’s Taxonomy.
You may notice that some of these verbs on the table are associated with multiple
Bloom’s Taxonomy levels. These “multilevel-verbs” are actions that could apply to
different activities.
For example, you could have an objective that states “At the end of this lesson,
students will be able to explain the difference between linguistic competence and
linguistic performance.” This would be an understanding level objective.
However, if you wanted the students to be able to “…explain the shift in the linguistic
competence throughout the various phases of language learning.” This would be
an analyzing level verb.
Adding to this confusion, you can locate Bloom’s verb charts that will list verbs at
levels different from what we list below.
Just keep in mind that it is the skill, action or activity you will teach using that
verb that determines the Bloom’s Taxonomy level.
Course level objectives are just too broad. Instead, we use several lesson level
objectives to demonstrate mastery of one course level objective.
To create good course level objectives, we need to ask ourselves: “what do I want the
students to have mastery of at the end of the course?” Then, after we finalize our course
level objectives, we have to make sure that mastery of all of the lesson level objectives
underneath confirm that a student has mastery of the course level objective—in other
words, if your students can prove (through assessment) that they can do each and every
one of the lesson level objectives in that section, then you as an instructor agree they
have mastery of the course level objective.
How Bloom’s works with course level and lesson level objectives:
•Course level objectives are broad. You may only have 3-5 course level
objectives. They would be difficult to measure directly because they overarch the
topics of your entire course.
•Lesson level objectives are what we use to demonstrate that a student has mastery
of the course level objectives.
•We do this by building lesson level objectives that build toward the course level
objective. For example, a student might need to demonstrate mastery of 8 lesson
level objectives in order to demonstrate mastery of one course level objective.
How Bloom’s works with course level and lesson level objectives:
•Because the lesson level objectives directly support the course level objectives, they
need to build up the Bloom’s taxonomy to help your students reach mastery of the
course level objectives.
•Use Bloom’s Taxonomy to make sure that the verbs you choose for your lesson level
objectives build up to the level of the verb that is in the course level objective.
•The lesson level verbs can be below or equal to the course level verb, but they
CANNOT be higher in level. For example, your course level verb might be
an Applying level verb, “illustrate.” Your lesson level verbs can be from any Bloom’s
level that is equal or below this level (applying, understanding, or remembering).
Bloom created hierarchies for the psychomotor and affective domains as well.
These scales try to capture the increasing complexity associated with learning in
each domain.
• Aims reflect the ideology of curriculum and show how curriculum will seek to
realize it.
• Aims statement are generally derived from information gathered during a
needs analysis,
• and objective in language teaching are based on understanding of the nature
of the subject matter being taught (e.g. listening, speaking reading, writing).
• In curriculum discussions, the terms goal and aim are used interchangeably
to refer to a description of the general purposes of a curriculum
• objective to refer to a more specific and concrete description of purposes.
• Aims statements reflect the ideology of the curriculum and show how the
curriculum will seek to realize it.
For these to become aims, they need to focus on the changes in the learners
that will result. For example:
• Students will learn how to write effective business letters for use in the hotel and
tourism industries.
• Students will learn how to listen effectively in conversational interactions and how to
develop better listening strategies.
• Students will learn how to communicate information and ideas creatively and
effectively through writing.
• Students will be able to communicate in English at a basic level for purposes of
tourism.
• Aims are very general statements of the goals of a program. They can be interpreted in
many different ways.
Aim
• Students will learn how to understand lectures given in English.
Objectives
• Students will be able to follow an argument, theme, or thesis of a lecture.
• Students will learn how to recognize the following aspects of a lecture:
• cause-and-effect relationships
• comparisons and contrasts
• premises used in persuasive arguments
• supporting details, used in persuasive arguments
2.Each objective needs one verb. Either a student can master the objective, or they fail to
master it. If an objective has two verbs (say, define and apply), what happens if a student
can define, but not apply? Are they demonstrating mastery?
3.Ensure that the verbs in the course level objective are at least at the highest Bloom’s
Taxonomy as the highest lesson level objectives that support it. (Because we can’t verify
they can evaluate if our lessons only taught them (and assessed) to define.)
4.Strive to keep all your learning objectives measurable, clear and concise.
Why?
Why?
How?
Instructional objectives must be written to
communicate realistic, measurable, and learner centered outcomes.
• Realistic objectives can be achieved by the learners within your time frame
and in your given environment.
• Measurable objectives enable you to observe and determine how well
learners have acquired skills and knowledge.
• Learner centered objectives state what the learner can do at the end of a
course. They always start with action verbs.
How?
Instructional objectives must be written to
communicate realistic, measurable, and learner centered outcomes.
• Specify intended results or outcomes, and not the process. Teaching and
lecturing is part of the process of instruction, but it isn't the purpose of the
instruction. The purpose is to facilitate learning.
• Instructional objectives contain four components: the Audience, the
Behavior, the Condition, and the Degree.
When?