Key Points

Goals
A goal is a broad statement describing the general purpose of instruction. Goals are long-term and may span multiple years and academic disciplines. They provide a framework for building a curriculum and influence the concepts that will be addressed through instruction and activities. It is important to note, that goals are always written in terms of how the learner, not the teacher, will perform after instruction is complete.

Examples of Goals
Students will:

• Use scientific reasoning strategies, scientific knowledge, and common sense to formulate questions, understand, and explain a wide range of natural phenomena
• Respond to fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and drama using interpretive, critical, and evaluative processes
• Understand and be sensitive to the range of physical, geographic, economic, political, and cultural realities that pervade our society and influence events

Concepts
Concepts are the core ideas, principles, theories, or process that serve as the focal point of curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Concepts are drawn from the body of knowledge comprising the academic discipline being studied. In well-designed educational programs concepts correlate with instructional goals and serve as the basis for identifying standards.

Examples
The oceans have a profound influence on weather and climate, which in turn, affect living organisms.

Energy can be used to do work and to make changes in matter. These changes sometimes require energy and sometimes release energy.

Cultures interact in a manner that alters the norms, values, customs, and beliefs of each group.

Standards
There are two kinds of standards related to educational practice; performance standards and content standards. Performance standards specify how well students are expected to achieve or perform. A content standard identifies the knowledge or skills to be learned by students in an academic discipline. It describes what a student is expected to know and be able to do but not how well. The California State Academic Content Standards are, as the name implies, content standards. They are approved by the State Board of Education and represent state guidelines for what students should know or be able to do at each grade level. They are derived directly from concepts and to some degree overlap them. They serve as the basis for writing instructional objectives. However, because the Standards in each academic discipline were written by different committees, they do not always follow the same format.

Examples
1. Water on Earth moves between the oceans and land through the processes of evaporation and condensation. (Science, Level: 5)

1c. Water moves through the air in the form of clouds or fog which are tiny droplets of water or ice and falls to the Earth as rain, hail, sleet or snow.

2. Organisms in ecosystems exchange energy and nutrients among themselves and with the physical environment. (Science, Level: 6)

2a. Energy entering ecosystems as sunlight is transferred by producers into chemical energy through photosynthesis.

Instructional (Behavioral) Objectives
An instructional or behavioral objective is a specific statement of what learners should know or be able to do after completing instruction. You will note that in some texts "behavioral" is used; in others the term "instructional" is used. We will use the term "instructional objective" in this tutorial. Well written instructional objectives describe how students will demonstrate their knowledge or skill, and the conditions under which they will demonstrate it. They serve to guide daily instruction as well as assessment of student learning. Instructional objectives are derived from standards and must be aligned with the standard identified for the instructional activity.

Examples
Given a worksheet with 25 two-column addition problems, compute column addition with 95% accuracy.

Given a labeled diagram of the human digestive system, explain in writing the function of identified organ with 80% accuracy.

After reading James and the Giant Peach, create a story map describing the sequence of events that meets at least a Level 4 on a teacher- developed scoring rubric.

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