Instructional design/Backward Design/Selecting the Goals

Selecting Goals

The Indiana content standards for high school (grades 9-12) Health and Wellness include the following standard: "Students will demonstrate the ability to use goal-setting skills to enhance health." Also included are the following substandards: "Assess personal health practices, Develop a goal to adopt, maintain or improve a personal health practice, Apply strategies and skills needed to attain a personal health goal, and Describe how personal health goals can vary with changing abilities, priorities and responsibilities."

By analyzing these learning goals for a high school Health and Wellness course, it is possible to identify a starting point for determining what the students need to learn. The starting point could be reworded to a single goal that encompasses all of these standards, such as: Students will apply their knowledge of healthy practices to develop and track their own personal health goal.

Developing healthy goals is an important skill needed by everyone. When students are able to use their own experiences as the basis of their goal, it takes on a much more personal meaning for the students.

Knowledge Check

Given the following Personal Finance standards:
1. Create a basic budget with categories for income, taxes, planned savings, and fixed and variable expenses.
2. Analyze and adjust budget categories to manage spending and achieve financial goals.
3. Develop a personal financial plan that shows allocation of income, spending, saving, investing and sharing/giving over a year-long time span.
Which of the following would be an appropriate goal?

	Students will use their knowledge to create a plan for spending their income.
	Students will use their knowledge to manage money effectively by developing financial goals and budgets.
	Students will use their knowledge to explain the benefits of saving.
	Students will use their knowledge to determine the best way to plan for retirement.

Navigation

• Stages of Backward Design
• Selecting the Goals
• Selecting the Evidence
• Selecting the Activities
• Summary
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