(Kurita) Hello, everyone. (Student) Hello. (Kurita)Welcome to “Interactive Teaching” WEEK 5. This week’s topic is “Let’s design a more useful syllabus.” In this session, we will talk about setting goals and objectives. Before starting on the main topic, let me clarify the goal for this week. “Acquire the skills to design a more useful syllabus to promote students’ learning.” We learned about the roles of a syllabus in the last session. The objective of this session is, “Be able to set appropriate goals and objectives.” Here is the table of contents: What a goal is, how to write goals, what an objective is, how to write objectives, and the wrap-up. Goals (mokuteki) and objectives (mokuhyou) have same Chinese characters in common and look similar, so it is sometimes confusing. Let’s learn about them in order. So, what is a goal? (Sato) Before answering that question, let me ask you a question. Horiuchi-san, suppose that you are delivering a class to a large number of students, say 200 or 250. Most students are hanging on your every word, but there is a student at the back of the classroom who has been sleeping for 90 minutes. You are anxious about this during the class. After the class finishes and students leave the classroom, that student comes to you and asks, “Why do I have to take a class like this?” What would you answer? (Student) Well, I think it depends on the course, but if it was a course for national examination I would say “This course is a requirement for those taking a national examination, and you won’t pass the exam unless you study hard.” (Sato) I see. Do you think that you can convince the student with those words? (Student) I suppose… not. (Sato) Hmm. This is the question I would like to ask all of you. The goal is the thing you need to enthusiastically tell the students when asked, “Why does this course exist?” or “Why do I have to learn this?” Horiuchi-san answered “Because it is a requirement for those who will take a national examination,” and that would be one of the goals of the course, but not all courses lead to national examinations. What would you answer in those cases? Did you make it clear to the students in your syllabus? Please check your goals once again. Speaking of goals, there are specific tips for writing them. The first tip is to make sure students are the subject. There are many opinions regarding this and some syllabuses are written with instructors as the subject. But in these cases, students always have to convert what is written to apply to themselves, so I recommend you have students as the subject instead to make it easier for them to understand the syllabus. The second tip is to use the expression “in order to…” As Horiuchi-san mentioned, you need to take this course in order to pass the national examination. As you can see, it is a useful expression to clarify the goal. The third tip is to use all-inclusive verbs. When you set goals for the whole course, the explanation is likely to be quite complicated. Verbs such as “acquire” and “learn to do” as shown here are often used and would make it easier for you to describe the goals. (Kurita) Thank you for explaining what a goal is. Now, let’s move on to objectives. Would you proceed to the next topic, Mr. Sato? (Sato) Yes. Goals and objectives are quite similar, but objectives are considered as skills that you want your students to acquire by the end of a course. They are called “learning outcomes” in English these days. As a result of being taught by an educator, what will students learn and what will they be able to do? Goals should be broken down into objectives. Objectives should be written in terms of observable actions, namely as verbs, the same as writing goals. So, the descriptions of objectives use verbs. There are a lot of things that students learn in a class, but you cannot evaluate every single one of them. Therefore, even if students are expected to achieve various kinds of learning outcomes, you have to keep your objectives measurable And you must make it consistent with the graded assessment items By clarifying and specifying objectives, students can straightaway understand what will appear in examinations. This leads to the students learning independently. Here are the tips for writing specific objectives. Firstly, in the same way as writing goals, write objectives by having students as the subject. Objectives are not for instructors; they are for students. Secondly, write one objective per sentence. If you include several objectives in one sentence, it could complicate matters such as having half the objectives accomplished, and half not. So, itemize objectives. If the course is worth two credits, then the number of objectives will range between a few and ten or so. The third tip is to clarify the standard for evaluation, to show to what extent you want your students to achieve the objectives. For example, you can use numbers such as “be able to explain three items in the contents.” The more you make the standard specific, the more the objectives become clear. Regarding this topic, I am often asked about the appropriate level of objectives. You must have learned about it in the sessions on motivation. The fourth tip is to set the objectives at a realistic yet challenging level. To make it simple, I always explain this as “the distance you can reach by jumping.” If it is out of reach even when jumping, it would erode your motivation. On the other hand, if you can reach it without jumping, it would make you think that you do not need to take 15 classes to achieve it, and you would again lose motivation. The appropriate level depends on the level of each student and this differs from year to year, so it is necessary for you to reexamine it every year. Today, I have divided objectives into three domains. The first relates to knowledge and is called the cognitive domain. The second is about skills and is called the psychomotor domain. The third is about behavior and is called the affective domain. There are many ways to categorize objectives, but I think this is the simplest and easiest. I would like to ask all of you, which domain do the objectives of your syllabus belong to? Has anyone put their objectives in the knowledge, or cognitive, domain? Could you raise your hands? Could you tell us something specific about the objectives? (Student) Yes. I set nearly five cognitive objectives. One of them is “be able to explain the cause of international problems cited in the keywords.” (Sato) That is a simple and very good objective. (Kurita) Yes, it is. (Sato) Let’s go on to the next one. Has anyone put their objectives in the psychomotor domain, namely regarding skills? A little fewer. How about you? (Student) “Be able to collect newspaper stories related to the given keywords by yourself.” (Sato) I see. Information-gathering ability. That is a skill. How about you? (Student) My class relates to programming, so the objective is “be able to write a program for handling files.” (Sato) I see. Writing a program is a specific skill. Then how about the affective domain? Did anyone put their objectives in the affective domain? Could you tell us about it? (Student) Yes. My class is about nursing. The objective is “be able to be considerate of people who have health problems and of the people around them.” (Sato) Be considerate, I see. It is said that the affective domain is difficult to foster and to evaluate, it is gaining more attention not only in the fields of nursing, education, but also in other fields such as engineering and literature. Many of the skills fostered in higher education belong to the cognitive domain, but I would like you to reexamine the objectives you set for your course to see if there could also be other objectives in the psychomotor and affective domains. There are verbs recommended to use for describing objectives in each domain. Here are the ones frequently used in the cognitive domain. Prof. Kurita, is there any verb that you often use? (Kurita) I always show the goals and objectives for this in “Interactive Teaching” course, I usually use the word “explain.” (Sato) I see. These are the verbs that are often used, and as you can see, words such as “enumerate” at the top are very simple. These are used at novice level in the cognitive domain. The more you proceed, the more advanced and higher-order the verb become such as “apply.” So, if you deliver a class for graduate students, you need to set objectives with these words in addition to "explain". On the other hand, if you deliver a class for novices, such as freshmen you should be using words such as “enumerate.” Regarding the psychomotor domain, namely skills, here are the verbs used for describing objectives, but since they are from the Japan Society for Medical Education, “make a visual inspection” and “palpate” would not be suitable for your classes. Please change these words so that they fit your fields. Here are the words used in the affective domain. You might think that it would be difficult to get involved in education related to psychological domain, and that you would not be capable of delivering such a class, but communication skills such as “be considerate,” could eventually be encouraged by using active learning methods. In that case, you can include and clarify “improve communication skills” in the objectives. (Kurita) Thank you very much. Now, let’s wrap up. Could you summarize what we have learned in this session, Mr. Sato? (Sato) Yes. We learned about one of the most important items in a syllabus. A goal shows why the class exists; it is the answer you can give your students when you are asked why they must learn. An objective is a skill that you want your students to acquire by the end of the course. You need to specify objectives in accordance with the three domains. (Kurita) That’s all for this session.
