Week 2 - Reflection: Experience with New Search Engines and ABCD Model for Writing Objectives

Hi Everybody,

After saying farewell to week 1, I was waiting for week 2 expecting something new. It officially opened on Monday resting the load in front of me. Hurriedly, I opened it and made a glance for new gifts. The first gift was ‘web search’ and the second ‘writing behavioral objectives following ABCD model’. I have been said to go through them and posts on Nicenets. As I was supposed to do, I went through an article “Technology tip of the Month” by Debore h Healey and got basic idea about search engines from that. Then I sailed into the noodletools that consists of many search engines to explore new queries. I surfed into them and found something new in each. Similarly, I entered into the ABCD objectives world, and explored new ideas. I went through the article for writing objectives and learned what objectives really meant, what the rationale of the objectives in our class was and what things to be conducted while setting up objectives.

Things Learned from Search Engine Discussion

 The phrase ‘search engine’ was totally new for me although I have been using web for many years. I used to consult only Google and yahoo to search for all my queries. Really speaking I didn’t know there are so many search engines for different types of queries in difficult areas. Some of the search engines within noodletools are totally new for me. When I went through these search engines I came to know that there are so many resourceful, advanced and sophisticated search engines in web search world. And also each of these is for different sector of knowledge. Therefore, which search engine is to be used is determined by what is searched for.

Learned from ABCD model objectives

As a teacher of education campus, I have been teaching my students the meaning of objectives and also taught them to set up objectives for their daily lesson plan during the time of practice teaching. What I usually teach them to write, for example:

 On completion of this lesson, the students will be able to:

1.       Read the passage carefully, and

2.       Answer the comprehension questions related to the passage.

Now, I came to know that this objective is not complete in itself. It has condition (on completion of this lesson), the students (audience), behavioral objectives (read the passage and answer the comprehension questions related to passage) but it lacks degree (what percent mastery) is expected from students).  From the given objective, we are not sure whether the students can read the passage carefully. How ‘Carefully’ can be measured and also we cannot be sure that they can answer 100% correctly.

Therefore, ABCD model is the best model of objectives to teach our students. Moreover, I learned that there are mainly three classifications of objectives:

Cognitive domain: includes objectives related to information or knowledge. Here, the hierarchy of Bloom’s cognitive objectives is presented below:

Remembering the lowest level (requires low cognition)

Understanding

Applying (to implement (use) the information)

Analyzing (to break the information into component parts and describe the relationship)

Evaluating (to make judgment about materials or methods)

Creating (the highest level) (to generate new ideas, products and ways of viewing things)

Psycho-motor Domain:  It includes the objectives that require basic motor skills and physical movement such as kick, jump, etc.

Affective domain: It includes objectives related to attitudes, appreciations, values and emotions.

The teacher should follow ABCD model either she/he wants to meet objectives of any domain, because the objectives can be met after teaching or involving students in activities or giving them resources to read and so on. Then students will be expected to do some assignment or works according to the domain in some degree in a given time span.

How I will implement the knowledge in my classroom

In the classroom, I will provide students list of queries to search for and ask them to choose what they like, then, ask them to go through the search engines I provide. Here, students have to visit search engines and try to explore information. They can visit any search engine they like and should make the notes that they find. All the students will come together and discuss what they learned from it.

The third task that I did this week is making the introduction of the students and classroom setting. It is the necessary task under the project work that we participants have to carry out in this course. I participated in the nicenet discussions related to all these tasks I have described here.

Thank you

Harimaya