Instructional Objectives

After completing this chapter, you should be able to do the following  

Validate a quantitative problem solution by applying back-substitution, order-of-magnitude estimation, and the test of reasonableness. 

Given a set of measured values, calculate the sample mean, range, sample variance, and sample standard deviation. Explain in your own words what each of the calculated quantities means and why it is important. 

Explain the concept of dimensional homogeneity of equations. Given the units of some terms in an equation, use this concept to assign units to other terms. 

Given tabulated data for two variables x and y), use linear interpolation between two data points to estimate the value of one variable for a given value of the other. Sketch a plot of y versus x and use it to illustrate how and when linear interpolation can lead to significant errors in estimated values. 

---

Mager, R. (1962), Preparing Instructional Objectives, Center for Effective Performance, Atlanta, GA. 

You are advised at this point to go back over the instructional objectives at the beginning of the chapter and review the chapter material on any objectives you feel you have not yet mastered. 

The Story Problem Solver (SPS) is a computer-implemented program of instruction about arithmetic story problems.1 My research group and I developed SPS as an explicit instructional test of schema theory.2 Its companion, the Problem Solving Environment (PSE), is also a computer-based system, one that provides no additional instruction but that serves instead as a practice arena in which we can evaluate students acquisition of schema knowledge. Both SPS and PSE are written in Lisp and run on Xerox 1186 computer workstations equipped with 19-inch display monitors and three-button optical mice. In this chapter, I first describe SPS and its instructional objectives and then explain the contributions of PSE. 

The primary instructional objective for SPS is to assist students in creating schemas that are based on the five situations described in detail in chapter 3 Change, Group, Compare, Restate, and Vary. My purpose in developing SPS was to construct a series of lessons that reflected the basic knowledge components of a set of schemas, that allowed direct assessment of those components, and that resulted in students creation of the specified schemas. 

Bloom s taxonomy is a classification of instructional objectives in a hierarchy. It is found quite useful in communicating the objectives of a chemistry lesson as also a criterion for evaluation of chemistry teaching. Under this scheme the specific objectives are classified as falling into the following three domains. 

The chapters in this book are all organized in a similar manner. First there is a paragraph or two describing the contents of the chapter and where it fits in to the general subject of thermodynamics. This introduction is followed by some specific instructional objectives or desired educational outcomes that the student is expected to develop from the chapter. Next is a brief list of the new terms or nomenclature introduced within the chapter. After.these preliminaries, the real work starts. 

In.itniaional objectives and notation. Two Items have been added at the beginning of each chapter. The first is a list of instructional objectives. This provides students with my expectations for what they should learn from the chapter, and can serve as a checklist that they can use to monitor progre.ss in their studies (e.specially for examinations). The second is a li.st of the important new notation introduced in that chapter. This is meant to provide an easy reference for students and to indicate the important quantities being introduced in the chapter. 

---