Educational Psychology

10. Planning instruction

kindergarten-level activity about “autumn leaves” that might appear in a curriculum guide. Note that the activity
meets several educational objectives at once—tracing shapes, knowledge of leaves and of colors, descriptive
language skill. Each of these skills may reflect a different curriculum standard.

Table 30: Sample curriculum guide activity
Curriculum guides provide graphic descriptions of activities that can be used fairly directly in the classroom.
Although they are relevant to standards and framework statements, they often are not organized around standards
and objectives as such.

Activity: Autumn Leaves

Level: Kindergarten

Themes and Curriculum Connections: trees, autumn, color naming, color comparisons, size comparisons,

functions of leaves, growth, the life cycle. See also Standards #xx-yy.

Best time to do it: Fall (October), or whenever leaves are available

Materials needed: (1) small paper (6 x 6 inches); (2) access to leaves; (3) white glue; (4) felt pens or colored

pencils

What to do: Give one piece of the small paper to each child. Invite children to color the sheet so that the entire

sheet is decorated. Invite children to choose one leaf. Place leaf under the colored (decorated) paper and trace the

shape of the leaf lightly in pencil. Then invite children to cut out the colored paper in the shape that has been

traced of the leaf.

Cautions: (1) Some children may need individual help with tracing or cutting. (2) Try to use leaves that are still

somewhat pliable, because some very old leaves (dried out) may crumble when traced.

Things to talk about: Are some leaves bigger than others? Do they change shape as they grow, or only their

size? How do leaves benefit trees? How many different colors can real leaves be?

Formulating learning objectives...................................................................................................................

Given curriculum frameworks and guides like the ones just described, how do you choose and formulate actual
learning objectives? Basically there are two approaches: either start by selecting content or topics that what you
want students to know (the cognitive approach) or start with what you want students to do (the behavioral
approach). In effect the cognitive approach moves from the general to the specific, and the behavioral approach
does the opposite. Each approach has advocates, as well as inherent strengths and problems. In practice, teachers
often combine or alternate between them in order to give students some of the advantages of each.

From general to specific: selecting content topics

The cognitive approach assumes that teachers normally have a number of long-term, general goals for students,
and it begins with those goals. It also assumes that each student work toward long-term, general goals along

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