widely practiced by both teachers and administrators. He received a bachelor's degree from Iona College in New York, a master's degree from Seattle University, and a doctorate from the University of Washington.
ABOUT MARZANO RESEARCH LABORATORY
Marzano Research Laboratory (MRL) is a joint venture between Solution Tree and Dr. Robert J. Marzano. MRL combines Dr. Marzano's forty years of educational research with continuous action research in all major areas of schooling in order to provide effective and accessible instructional strategies, leadership strategies, and classroom assessment strategies that are always at the forefront of best practice. By providing such an all-inclusive research-into-practice resource center, MRL provides teachers and principals the tools they need to effect profound and immediate improvement in student achievement.
INTRODUCTION
Designing and Teaching Learning Goals and Objectives is the first in a series of books collectively referred to as The Classroom Strategies Series. The purpose of this series is to provide classroom teachers and building and district administrators with an in-depth treatment of research-based instructional strategies that can be used in the classroom to enhance student achievement. Many of the strategies addressed in this series have been covered in other works such as The Art and Science of Teaching: A Comprehensive Framework for Effective Instruction (Marzano, 2007), Classroom Management That Works (Marzano, Marzano, & Pickering, 2003), and Classroom Instruction That Works (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). Although those works devoted a chapter or a part of a chapter to particular strategies, The Classroom Strategies Series devotes an entire book to an instructional strategy or set of related strategies.
Designing clear learning goals and objectives is a staple of effective teaching. We might even say that goal setting is a necessary condition for effective teaching. If teachers aren't sure of instructional goals, their instructional activities will not be focused, and unfocused instructional activities do not engender student learning. As straightforward as this might sound, designing and teaching goals and objectives takes insight into the nature of content and the nature of learning. Designing and Teaching Learning Goals and Objectives addresses the research, theory, and practice regarding the design and use of effective goals.
We begin with a brief but inclusive chapter that reviews the research and theory on goal setting. Although you might skip this chapter and move right into those that provide recommendations for classroom practice, you are strongly encouraged to examine the research and theory because it is the foundation for the entire book. Indeed, a basic purpose of Designing and Teaching Learning Goals and Objectives and others in The Classroom Strategies Series is to present the most useful instructional strategies that are based on the strongest research and theory available.
Because research and theory can provide only a general direction for classroom practice, Designing and Teaching Learning Goals and Objectives (and each book in the series) goes one step further to translate that research into specific applications for the classroom. It is important to note, however, that individual teachers must make necessary adaptations to meet the unique needs of their students.
How to Use This Book
Designing and Teaching Learning Goals and Objectives can be used as a self-study text that provides an in-depth understanding of how to design and teach classroom goals and objectives. As you progress through the chapters, you will encounter exercises. It is important to complete these exercises and then compare your answers with those in the back of the text. Such interaction provides a review of the content and allows you to examine how clearly you understand it.
Designing and Teaching Learning Goals and Objectives may also be used by teams of teachers or by an entire faculty who wishes to examine the topic of designing and teaching learning goals in depth. When this is the case, teacher teams should do the exercises independently and then compare their answers in small group and large group settings.
Chapter 1
RESEARCH AND THEORY
Before addressing the research and theory on goals and objectives, it is useful to consider the issue of terminology. The terms goals and objectives have been used by different people in different ways. For some, the term goal applies only to the overarching purpose of curriculum, and the term objective is reserved for day-to-day instructional targets. In the research and theoretical worlds, these terms tend to be used interchangeably for general and specific purposes. In this book, the terms will be used interchangeably. However, as the following discussion illustrates, the focus of this book is on day-to-day classroom instruction.
The importance of goals and objectives in education was established as far back as the first half of the last century by the educational philosopher and evaluation expert Ralph Tyler (1949a, 1949b). For Tyler, a well-constructed objective should contain a clear reference to a specific type of knowledge as well as reference to the behaviors that demonstrate proficiency relative to that knowledge. Prior to Tyler's recommendations, educators typically did not identify specific areas of information and skill as targets for student learning. Instead, broad topic areas such as “probability” or “World War II” represented the most specific level of curricular organization.
Where Tyler's insights into the nature of content and the nature of learning made it clear that educators must design specific objectives and identify the behaviors that demonstrate achievement of those objectives, David Krathwohl and David Payne (1971) made distinctions between three levels or types of objectives: global objectives, educational objectives, and instructional objectives. As described by Robert Marzano and John Kendall (2007), global objectives are the most general. They are broad, complex areas. For example, “Students will be able to apply basic properties of probability” would be considered a global objective.
Instructional objectives are the most specific of the three types of objectives. In Preparing Instructional Objectives, Robert Mager (1962) explained that a well-written instructional objective should include three elements:
1. Performance. An objective always says what a learner is expected to be able to do; the objective sometimes describes the product or result of the doing.
2. Conditions. An objective always describes the important conditions (if any) under which the performance is to occur.
3. Criterion. Whenever possible, an objective describes the criterion of acceptable performance by describing how well the learner must perform in order to be considered acceptable. (p. 21)
In the middle of the triad are educational objectives (Anderson et al., 2001). They articulate specific areas of knowledge, but don't identify the performance conditions and criteria for success as do instructional objectives. In Designing and Teaching Learning Goals and Objectives, we primarily address educational objectives, which we more commonly refer to as learning goals. How these goals can be addressed on the instructional level will also be examined in depth.
The importance of learning goals to the day-to-day execution of classroom activities is fairly obvious. Goals are the reason classroom activities are designed. Without clear goals, classroom activities are without direction. Researchers Joseph Krajcik, Katherine McNeill, and Brian Reiser (2007) explain that good teaching begins with clear learning goals from which teachers select appropriate instructional activities and assessments that help determine students' progress on the learning goals.
It is useful to keep in mind that goal setting is not unique to education. Indeed,
