css Zen Garden

The Beauty of CSS Design

Presuming Competence By Design • A Tutorial for Systems, Environment, Curricular, and Materials Design in Learning Systems

Requirements

Good Objectives – Universally-Designed Objectives

A universally-designed learning objective separates the end from the means – what you want to accomplish is separate from how you will get there.  In truth, a GOOD objective of any sort separates the end from the means (Kaufman, 2000; Mager, 1997; Oakley-Browne, in press)

 

Let’s rework the examples:

“My first graders aren’t identifying their phonemes, so __________________________________

 

… I want 100% of my students to be able to identify beginning and ending phonemes by winter break at an accuracy rate of 95%”

 

Now that’s an objective!  It begins with the end in mind – clearly stated, and it's measurable so this teacher will know when his class has met the objective.  Once that objective is defined, then – and only then – can the means be selected.  So here’s the beauty of separating ends from means especially for diverse groups of learners.  Different learners will require different strategies to get them to those goals.

 

If we had told you that a “good objective” separates ends from means, you might have thought, “yeah, yeah … okay.”  However, it’s about more than following good ideas.  A good objective that separates ends from means keeps us from limiting individuals by design.  When we start with a good objective, we define the end state.  Then we can take a look around to see all the variety in the classroom or workplace and better identify what it will take to raise the performance level for everyone.  Given that diversity, we will have to develop a more flexible learning and performance environment.  However, without that perspective, we would have continued to design a classroom or workplace the same way we always do … and then bang our head against the walls yet again when not everyone is performing well.

 

So the UDL frame of mind applied to goals and objectives is critical.  This is the place we start to write our assumptions and presumptions out of the classroom or workplace and write in our belief that every individual can perform and improve.