DOMAINS OF LEARNING AND THEIR EFFECTS ON TEACHING

Learning domains are one of the crucial elements for students to gain knowledge

comprehensively. There are four domains of learning (cognitive, affective, psychomotor,

interpersonal), and these show differences in terms of application. As every student learns

distinctively, teachers should know how to apply all the domains in their classes in an

effective way.

To begin with, the primary one of these learning domains is the cognitive domain. It

encompasses acquiring new knowledge and developing mental skills. Because there is

knowledge at its center, the cognitive domain is the main learning domain (Vinston, 2019).

According to Bloom’s Taxonomy, which was introduced in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom, the

cognitive domain consists of six categories that follow a hierarchical order from the simplest

level to the most complex level. These are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis,

synthesis, and evaluation. With order becoming more and more difficult, Bloom’s taxonomy

enables teachers to build a strong knowledge basement in their students’ brains. Thus, the

permanence of knowledge is facilitated. For instance, a student needs to learn the four

operations to be able to solve difficult problems. It can be understood from this example that

it is not very likely to improve learning skills without a strong base.

Secondly, the affective domain is related to attitudes and values. According to

Krathwohl, there is not distinct difference between the cognitive and affective domains. That

is, the more interested is a student in a subject, the better s/he learns it. Willingness and

interest are the key points in the development of the affective domain (Vaughan, 1980).

Teachers can use various ways to improve this domain. For example, a teacher gives

information to his students about environmental pollution. They are studying the effects of

pollution on different ecosystems. To enable his students to understand the subject better, the

teacher does an experiment. He and his students collect their trash in the class, and after a
week the class starts to smell bad. In this way, the students can understand well the

relationship between environmental pollution and its harm to ecosystems (Miller, 2005).

The last two domains are the psychomotor and interpersonal domains. Motor activities

and skills such as coordination and physical actions are related to the psychomotor domain.

To develop these skills in the class, teachers should give importance to repetition. To give an

example, in a physical education class, a student observes his coach first and tries to do her

movements. The student imitates his coach by repeating her actions. In the end, he is able to

perform his coach’s physical movements. As emphasized in the example, starting from

observation, the psychomotor behaviors may be obtained by imitation and become permanent

by repetition.

Finally, the interpersonal domain includes social skills. Communication and interaction

are important values in this domain (Bennet,1993). Teachers can put this learning domain into

their educational objectives by adding group works and discussions about a specific topic.

This will enable the active participation of the students.

Teachers should use these domains fairly while setting their educational objectives. In

classic classroom teaching, the cognitive domain is the most stressed one because it situates

the “knowledge” at its core. Therefore, most teachers establish objectives that want students

to gain knowledge about historical dates, math formulas, or recite. However, if the learners

don’t know how to use this knowledge, these educational objectives will not be effective.

Thus, they should contain all the learning domains so that they can meet the students’

different understanding needs.

Each domain has its own characteristics; therefore, focusing on only one domain in an

educational objective will make it weak and insufficient. Apart from the cognitive domain,

which is the most commonly included one in educational objectives, teachers should also
balance the remaining three domains. There are various ways to do this. To give an example,

instead of only transmitting the body of knowledge to the students, educators should absorb

the learners in the process of teaching. This may be achieved by arranging group works

according to the different interests of the students and giving them discussion tasks about the

related themes in the curriculum. Additionally, another strategy for the balanced inclusion of

the four domains is to arouse interest among the pupils. Asking them questions like “How do

you know?” or “Can you explain it further?” will foster the learners to research the related

topic. In this way, effective learning will be facilitated (Bennet,1993).

To sum up, the basic aim of learning domains is to improve the learners’ understanding

(Anilkumar, 2022). Because every student has a different learning process, educational

objectives should be comprised of the four learning domains. Teachers can include all of them

in their objectives by using different practices such as promoting collaborative learning. By

this means, the efficacy of teaching and learning may be increased.

Anilkumar, A (2022, February), The Most Effective Teaching Strategies To

Use In Your School: Evidence-Based And Proven To Work.

https://thirdspacelearning.com/blog/teaching-strategies/#3-1-know-

your-pupils-and-develop-their-respect

Bennett, J. M. (1993). Toward Ethnorelativism: A Developmental Model of Intercultural

Sensitivity. In R. M. Paige (Ed.), Education for the Intercultural Experience (pp. 21-

71). Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press.

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Miller, M. (2005). Teaching and Learning in Affective Domain. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging

perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. http://epltt.coe.uga.edu/index.php?

title=Teaching_and_Learning_in_Affective_Domain
 INSTRUCTIONAL GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Planning is an important concept in nearly every field of life. It provides achieving an

aim without deviating from the right way. Similarly, planning goals and objectives in

education are crucial for teaching in schools. It is called educational goals and objectives

when planning is related to education. Teachers can design their lessons at different levels,

and this makes it easier for students to learn. In addition to this, instructional goals and

objectives are required for evaluating the understanding of the students (Olivia, 2009).

To begin with, it is necessary to know the difference between goals and objectives to

understand their role in education. According to Levine and Ornstein (2011), goals are general

expressions that describe valuable and desired qualifications to apply to the student’s learning

process. They are broad terms that do not have a concern of evaluation. Goals seek what is to

be accomplished in general by the learners during a long term of education. However, they do

not give specific information about how to achieve these desired qualifications. Also, as they

do not bear any relation to evaluating, there are no measurable and observable statements in a

goal sentence.

In terms of scope, goals can be split into two: instructional goals and curriculum goals.

It has been stated at the very beginning of this essay that goals are wide expressions. Their

extensity shows differences according to their levels. Curriculum goals are prepared by the

curriculum groups that are constituted in schools. On the contrary, instructional goals are

arranged by the classroom teachers. They are narrower when compared to curriculum goals

even if they are on the same basis. In other words, it can be suggested that the specified

version of the curriculum goals is called instructional goals (Olivia, 2009). To illustrate, the

statement “Students will become proficient at the English language.” is a curriculum goal

while “Students will be able to write a paragraph in English with the least error.” is an
instructional goal. As seen in the examples it is unclear how to attain these goals and they are

very general statements.

Moreover, these goals are sorted out according to their levels of planning: course

planning, unit planning, weekly planning, and daily lesson planning. They have a hierarchic

order among themselves, course planning being the broadest one and daily lesson planning

the most specific one (Olivia, 2009).

After setting instructional and curriculum goals, it is necessary to describe objectives

for attaining the learning outcomes. Different from goals, objectives are minor aims that can

be achieved in a shorter time. An objective sentence should include evaluative and detailed

words. For example, “80% of the students will be able to introduce themselves in English by

doing speaking practice in small groups that will be set up in the class.” can be a good

example of a lesson objective. In this example, thanks to the specific percentage and the verb

“introduce”, the objective is clear enough to observe and evaluate. Like the educational goals,

objectives have also two forms: instructional objectives and curriculum objectives, the latter

being the more comprehensive one. Moreover, objectives can be designed at different levels:

subject-grade level, unit plan level, and lesson plan level (Posner & Rudnitsky, 2001). An

example of the objective at a level of lesson plan might be “Students will present a historical

event in the world using the Simple Past Tense.” As the example states, it is clear how to

achieve this objective.

While an educator is setting instructional goals and objectives, they should have some

guidelines to help them. First of all, they should use the curriculum goals and objectives as a

base of their goals and objectives at the level of instruction. Following, their statements

should include at least three learning domains. When writing goals and objectives, they need

to give importance to the interest of the learners as well as the knowledge to be taught.

Describing levels of learning by focusing on the high levels is another important guide for
educators. For example, if s/he prepares an objective related to the cognitive domain, the

greater emphasis should be on the analysis level rather than the knowledge level (Bloom,

1956). Lastly, educators should obey some rules. They should attach three main elements to

the goals and objectives: the behavior desired from the students, the circumstances to be

required for students to show their behavior, and the degree of proficiency. Besides, they need

to use proper vocabulary. For example, an objective should not contain verbs such as “know”

and “learn” because they cannot be measured exactly (Ornstein& Levine, 2011).

Finally, having set up educational goals and objectives, instructors are to validate and

prioritize them. Because the goals and objectives at the instructional level are narrower than

those of the curriculum level, the validation of instructional goals and objectives is easier.

Educators can validate and put the goals and objectives in order with the help of other

colleagues of them, supervisors, or knowledgeable curriculum consultants. However, the most

common way of validating these goals and objectives is the reference books or curriculum

guides. The writers of these sources are accepted as the leading people who arrange priorities

and validation elements (Olivia, 2009).

In summary, educational goals and objectives are influential in terms of achieving

effective teaching. They have sub-categories according to their comprehensiveness. This

creates differences with regard to their applications. Additionally, some guidelines such as the

specification of three learning domains will be useful for establishing good instructional goals

and objectives. At last point, teachers should validate and put them in order of priority by

referencing textbooks or consulting experts and colleagues of them.

Olivia, P.F (2009). Developing the Curriculum (7th ed.). Pearson.

Ornstein, A. C., Levine, D. U., & Gutek, G. L. (2011). Foundations of education. Belmont,

Calif: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Posner, George J., Rudnitsky A. N. (2001). Course Design: Guide to Curriculum

Development for Teachers (ED377827). ERIC.