EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Chapter 8, page 174

Plan instructional

goals

Plan assessments

Plan instructional

activities

CHAPTER 8 Assessment

Chapter Outline

INSTRUTIONAL GOALS AND THE INSTRUTIONAL CYCLE
The instructional cycle
Instructional goals
Behavioral objectives

ASSESSING UNDERSTANDING

ASSESSING TRANSFER
The difficulty of achieving transfer
Assessing for transfer

INSTRUTIONAL GOALS AND THE INSTRUTIONAL CYCLE

The Instructional Cycle

There are three central parts of instructional planning in Figure 8.1 (cf. Smith & De Lisi, 19xx):

Figure 8.1: Instructional planning

There is no particular order in which these planning activities need to be performed. Most commonly, you
would start with instructional goals. But however you proceed, it is crucial that goals, activities, and
assessments are in tight alignment.

Serious problems can arise when goals, activities, and assessments are not in alignment. Here are some
examples, all taken from undergraduate classes.

Example 1. An educational psychology professor has student groups act out a series of skits in which the
undergraduates in the class act out the role of K-12 students of various ages interacting on an assigned
task.. After each skit, there is a discussion about “how effective” the collaborative learning was in each
acted out group. Afterwards, the students leave the class thinking that the class went quickly, but they
really don’t know what they were supposed to “get” from this.
The problem here is a failure to articulate goals. This is an experience that was very common for me
when I first began teaching educational psychology courses. My instruction was all organized around
interesting, “hands-on” activities such as skits and role plays. But my classes weren’t going well, and I