Page 4 - Principles of instructional design

42 Principles of Instructional Design

understood within the local environment of the school. A course mav take on a
general title such as "American History," "Beginning French," "English 1," and
so on.
The ambiguity in meaning of courses with such tides is evident. Is "American
History" in grade 6 the same as or different from the course of the same tide in
grade 12? Is "English 1" concerned with composition, literature, or both? These
are by no means idle questions because they represent sources of difficulty for
many students in many places, particularly when thev are planning programs of
study. It is not entirely uncommon, for example, for a student to choose a course
such as "First-vear French," onlv to find that he should have elected "Beginning
French."
Ambiguity in the meaning of courses with title or topic designations can
readily be avoided when courses are described in terms of the objectives (Mager,
1975; Popham and Baker, 1970). Examples of objectives in many subject areas
are described by Bloom, Hastings, and Madaus (1971). Thus, if "English 1" has
the objective of having the student be able to "compose a unified composition
on any assigned single topic, in acceptable printed English, within an hour," it is
perfectly clear to everyone what a portion of the course is all about. It will not
help the student, in any direct fashion, to "identify imagery in modern poetrv"
or to "analyze the conflicts in works of fiction." It will, however, if successful,
teach him the basic craft of writing a composition. Similarly, if an objective of
"Beginning French" is that the student be able to "conjugate irregular verbs,"
this is obviously fairly clear. It will not readily be confused with an objective that
makes it possible for the student to "write French sentences from dictation."
As usually planned, courses often have several objectives, not just one. A
course in social studies may have the intention of providing the student with
several capabilities: "describing the context of (specified) historical events,"
"evaluating the sources of written history," and "snowing a positive liking for
the study of history." A course in science may wish to establish in the student the
ability "to formulate and test hypotheses," to "engage in scientific problem
solving," and also to 'Value the activities of scientists." Each of these kinds of
objectives within a single course mav be considered equally worthwhile. They
may also be differentiallv valued by different teachers. The main point to be
noted about them at this juncture, however, is that they are different. The most
important difference among them is that each requires a different plan for its
achievement. Instruction must be differentially designed to ensure that each
objective is attainable by students with the context of a course.
Are there a great many specific objectives for which individual instructional
planning must be done, or can this task be reduced in some manner? To answer
this question, one has to think of what common categories there may be among
all the different subject matter to be learned. For example, learning to describe
the size and composition of the Washington Monument in some sense is not
inherently different from learning to describe something else, such as the events
at the siege of Vicksburg. Applying the rules of trigonometry to triangles is a