Planning goals and Learning outcomes

Planning Goals and Learning Outcomes

A.      Introduction

There are some crucial dimensions of decision making in curriculum planning. The curriculum planners should know what language is, what teaching is, why learners study, how they learn, in what condition they learn, how their teachers help them, what material used, etc. Therefore, the planners need to collect the information that can be used to develop learners’ need and analyze the contextual factors where language is taught.

After all of information is completed, the planners start to determine the goal and outcomes of a program. Several key assumptions about goals characterized the curriculum approach to educational planning. These can be summarized as follows:

1.     People are generally motivated to pursue specific goals.

2.    The use of goals in teaching improves the effectiveness of teaching and learning.

3.    A program will be effective to the extent that is its goal are sound and clearly described.(Richard (2001)

Language programs describe their goal in terms of aims and objectives. 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 need 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).

If we use the analogy of a journey, the goal is the destination, the different points we pass through the journey to the destination are the objectives, the kinds of transportation we use are the enabling activities, how to manage the journey to arrive at the destination is the classroom management, and the course or program is the journey.to teach English, it was necessary to find answers to much more specific questions:

•       Should students study the literature and culture of speakers of the language they are learning, or just learn to speak and use the language as tool?
•       Should teachers just prepare students to pass a flawed language exam, or should teachers together seek ways of finding fairer methods of assessment?

To answer those questions, Eisner (1992) proposed five curriculum ideologies that shape the nature of language curriculum and the practices of language taeching different ways. They are:

1.Academic Rationalism

It is also known as classical humanism, and stresses the intrinsic value of the subject matter and its role in developing the learner’s intellect, humanistic values, and rationality. It is sometimes used to justify the inclusion of certain foreign languages in school curricula, where they are taught not as tools for communication but as an aspect of social studies.

2.      Social And Academic Eficiency

It emphasizes the practical needs of learners and society and the role of an educational program in producing learners who are economically productive. It leads to an emphasis on practical and functional skills in a foreign or second language. Therefore, it needs of society as a justification for the teaching of English. Successful economies in the twenty first century are increasingly knowledge based, and the bulk of the world’s knowledge is in the English language.  Freire describes this as a ‘banking model’: “Education thus become an act of depositing, in which the students are depositories and the teacher is depositor.”  On the other hand, advocates of this approach argue that the curriculum should above all focus on knowledge and skills that are relevant to the learner’s everyday life needs and that the curriculum should be planned to meet the practical needs of society.

3.      Learner- Centeredness

It stresses the individual needs of learners, the role of individual experience, and the need to develop awareness, self-reflection, critical thinking, learner strategies, and other qualities and skills that are believed to be important for learners to develop. This view is also known as constractivism.

4.      Social reconstructionism

Social Reconstructionists assume that education is the social process through which society is reconstructed. They have faith in the ability of education, through the medium of curriculum, to teach people to understand their society in such a way that they can develop a vision of a better society and act to bring that vision into existence.

5.      Cultural Pluranism

This philosophy argues that schools should prepare student to participate in several different cultures and not merely the culture of the dominant social and economic group. Banks (1988) argues that students in multicultural societies such as the United States need to develop cross-cultural competency or what is sometimes termed intercultural communication. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/curriculum-development-in-language-teaching/planning-goals-and-learning-outcomes/30477F18DCBD364AD9F3C518297B027E. retrieved on tuesday, may 2^nd 2017 at 02:015 pm).

B.     Planning Goals and Objectives

Goal

Goals are a way of putting into words the main purposes and intended outcomes of your course. If we use the analogy of a journey, the destination is the goal; the journey is the course. The objectives are the different points you pass through on the jorney to the destination. Stating your goals helps to bring into focus your vision and priorities for the course. A goal stated an aim that that the course will explicitly address in some ways. For example in writing class: by the end of the courses students will have become more aware of their writing in general and will be able to identify the specific areas in which improvement is needed. At the same time, goals are futured oriented as stated by Brown (cited in Graves:2000: ) goals are” what the students should be able to do when they leave the program.

Objective

Objective are statements about how the goals will be achieved. By achieving the objectives, the goal will be reached. Objectives are in a hierarchical relationship to goals. Goals are more general and objective are more specific. For every goal there are several objectives to help achieve it. Goals are more long term, objective more short term.

Formulating goals and objectives helps to build a clear vision of what you will teach. Clear goals help to make teaching purposeful because what you do in class is related to your overall purpose. Goals and objectives provide a basis for making choices about what to teach and how. Stating goals and objectives is a way of holding yourself accountable throughout the course (Graves:2000, 79-80).

C.    Learning Outcome

Watson (2002:208) defines a learning outcome as ‘being something that students can do now that they could not do previously … a change in people as a result of a learning experience’.  It has long been recognised that education and training are concerned with bringing about change in individuals, and the use of learning outcomes to describe these changes is certainly not a new practice.

Carey and Gregory (2003) as cited in  Maher , 2004) point out that as long ago as the 1930s in the USA, Ralph Tyler pioneered an ‘objectives-based’ approach to education in schools. Perhaps though, the most well known contribution to the development of outcomes-based curricula was the publication of A Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives by Benjamin Bloom in 1956. Bloom’s taxonomy provided a framework for classifying learning in cognitive terms that expressed different kinds of student thinking (i.e. knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation). Recently updated by Anderson and Krathwohl (2001), Bloom’s taxonomy has stood the test of time and underpins the design of many outcomes-based curricula the world over. The past decade however has witnessed something of a culture change in education and there is recognition that much is to be gained by moving away from the conception of a content-based focus of curriculum to a more student-centred approach ( Maher, 2004).

1.      Proposed benefits of learning outcomes

§  Putting the student at the centre of the learning experience: from teaching to learning

An influential paper published by Barr and Tagg in 1995 entitled ‘From Teaching to Learning: A New Paradigm For Undergraduate Education’ strongly advocated the need to move from what the authors termed the traditional ‘instructional paradigm’ with its focus on teaching and instruction to a ‘learning paradigm’ that enables students to discover and construct knowledge for themselves. if students are given a real stake in their own learning in this way, they will learn better and will be more motivated and enthusiastic about what they are learning. This approach, it is argued, should also encourage them to become more independent and autonomous learners.

§  Accreditation of learning: recognising student achievement outside of the class

Learning outcomes are also seen to have direct benefits for accrediting students’ learning outside of the class, by providing a clear indication of what students are expected to achieve in relation to specific awards. Outcomes describe explicitly what learners will be able to do as a result of learning as well as the standards which will be required in the accreditation and assessment of that learning.

2.       Examples of course-level learning outcomes

•         Art History - Students will interpret art works to establish a perspective on the subject matter and the meaning of their imagery (iconography)

•         Chemistry- Students will develop an appreciation for the application of organic synthesis to the solution of modern-day technological and social challenges

•        English Language and Literature - Students will deconstruct literary language to explore the processes by which it may be produced, contested, and reinvented. http://www.queensu.ca/artsci/sites/default/files/learning_outcomes_curr_mapping.pdf. retrieved on tuesday, may 2^nd 2017 at 02:07 pm.

Referencies

Graves. K.(2000). Designing language Course: A Guide for Teacher. Canada : Heinle & Heinle Publishers.p. 73-80.

Maher. A.(2004). Learning outcomes in Higher Education: implication for Curriculum Design and student learning. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure,Sport and Tourism Education,3(2). UK : Oxford

Richard.J.C (2001). Curriculum Development In language Teaching. United Kingdom: Cambridge.

Watson, P. (2002) The role and integration of learning outcomes into the educational process. Active Learning in Higher Education 3(3), 205-219.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/curriculum-development-in-language-teaching/planning-goals-and-learning-outcomes/30477F18DCBD364AD9F3C518297B027E. retrieved on tuesday, may 2^nd 2017 at 02:015 pm.

http://www.queensu.ca/artsci/sites/default/files/learning_outcomes_curr_mapping.pdf. retrieved on tuesday, may 2^nd 2017 at 02:07 pm.