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Essay Instructions: The essay question that was given was "What is the purpose of education and why?" The essay is supposed to be argumentative.

Essay Instructions: The class books are: "A History of the Western Educational Experience" second edition by Gerald L. Gutek and the book "Love YOur God With All Your Mind" by J.P. Moreland

EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY PAPER INSTRUCTIONS
You will write a 6-page paper (excluding title, abstract, and reference pages) in APA format outlining your beliefs about the purposes of education. Relate those beliefs to the content of this course, citing specific examples of educational thinkers and philosophies by way of comparison and contrast to your own. You are to include at least 6 references for this paper. SafeAssign will be used to evaluate the originality of your paper.

Carefully review the Educational Philosophy Paper Grading Rubric to ensure compliance with all standards. The following elements must be clearly defined throughout your paper using headings and subheadings:

Title Page

Consider the title of your paper to be your motto, slogan, or bumper-sticker version of your philosophy. It should be clear enough to give the reader some idea of what you believe about education. Include your name, ID number, course and section, and your instructor?s name and be sure it follows the APA format.

Abstract

Write a 1-paragraph abstract that conveys your philosophy of education and would be what you would write on a job application in response to a request to "describe your philosophy of education." The abstract need not summarize all aspects of the paper but should correspond with the title and thesis statements. You may target your abstract to be appropriate for either a public or Christian school application.

Consider this an abridged version of your full philosophy statement, similar to a vision or mission statement. This would also be something similar to what you would write on an employment application, or would say in an interview when asked about your educational philosophy.

Introduction

In your introduction, present a strong thesis statement that conveys what you believe to be the purpose of education. The thesis statement should correspond to the title of the paper. Construct the remainder of the paper to support the thesis statement.

The best place for your thesis statement is the last sentence of the introduction. It serves as a transition to the rest of the paper.

Worldview & Philosophy of Life

This is what you know and believe about the world and life. This section should flow smoothly into and be consistent with your thoughts about schools and learning. How would you describe your view of life in general? How will your worldview influence your practice as an educator? Be sure to include appropriate Scriptures to support your worldview. (The questions listed below are strictly to provoke thought and to help you know how to focus your writing. Do NOT write your paper as a list of direct answers to these questions.)

Remember to include your beliefs by specifically addressing and citing the main types of philosophies (idealism, realism, neo-scholasticism, etc.):
? Metaphysics: What is ultimately real or true? What gives life purpose or meaning?
? Epistemology: Do students come to know reality?
? Axiology: What do you most value? What do you want your students to value most? What ethical principles will guide you?


Philosophy of Schools & Learning

This is what you know and believe about both schools and learning. It should connect with the previous section and flow smoothly into the next section about instructional practice. Identify and properly cite key theories from your courses that will impact your teaching. In this section describe the theories and in the next section discuss how you would practice the theory in your instructional methods. What are the purpose of schools? How will professional knowledge guide your practice? Refer to the knowledge base in teacher education that includes educational psychology, philosophy, and learning theory. Don?t try to cover everything; just identify two or three key theories you espouse. From what specific professional knowledge will you draw in your practice? Whose theories, ideas, etc., are meaningful to you?

Explain your beliefs about education, comparing and contrasting them to historical figures studied in this course. Discuss your beliefs regarding educational trends and societal currents that affect education. You are encouraged to integrate content from Scripture and other courses as well.

Educational Practice

This is what you will implement in your practice. This section should flow smoothly from the previous one. In the previous section you should have identified and briefly discussed what theories you plan to implement. In this section you will explain how you will put those theories into practice. What pedagogical practices or methods will you tend to use most frequently? Why? What instructional strategies will you value and implement? What do you hope to accomplish by using these strategies?

Briefly explain how your life and/or educational experiences have shaped your philosophy of education. (Because this is not an autobiography, avoid long narratives.) Explain how your philosophy of education shapes, or will shape, your professional practices. Connect theory to practice.

Teacher-Learner Relationships

What is the role of the learner? What is the role of the teacher? How should they relate to each other and why? What does the Bible have to say about learners and teachers?

When constructing this section of your paper, remember not o simply answer these questions. They are only a guide to stimulate thought.

Diversity

What factors need to be taken into account by the teacher? How do factors of student diversity impact instruction? What does the Bible teach about how we should treat others, even (or especially) if they?re different?

Conclusion

Conclude with a paragraph that ties your paper together and reinforces the main idea that presented in the thesis statement and title.

If you have other headings, or important information you want to include in your paper, be sure to include them before your conclusion. Other ideas you may want to consider are your calling to teaching, classroom management philosophy, assessment philosophy, parent role and the relationship with the teacher, current ethics issues in education.


Use the chart below to help you organize your thoughts:
Because this paper is made up of your personal views, it will be graded on how well you followed the rubric, supported your ideas and presented them in a clear, consistent manner. You may disagree with your instructor without penalty. Make sure you are careful in your use of APA format, grammar, and sentence structure. Check your spelling and have someone proof-read your paper for content and correctness.

Try not to dwell too much on your personal biographical or testimonial information. How you came to believe what you do is not as important as what you believe and your rationale for it.

You should use a variety of references when composing your paper. Do not use Wikipedia or other non-reliable resources. Possible sources include:
? Textbooks for this and other courses
? The Bible (although not cited on the reference page)
? Academic educational journals
? Scholarly websites
? Books you?ve read that influence your educational philosophy

Introduction/Thesis Statement
10 points A well constructed introduction presents a clear thesis statement that conveys a personal philosophy of education and is strongly aligned with the title and body of the paper.

Abstract
10 points Abstract provides effective summation of overall arguments contained in the paper body.

Worldview and Philosophy of Life
30 points All of the issues of meaning/purpose, truth, and values are presented coherently and lay a foundation for a consistent philosophy of education.

Philosophy of Schools/Learning

30 points Beliefs about schools and the learning process strongly align with worldview, are consistent with methodology, and are conveyed in light of professional knowledge in the field.

Instructional Practice/Methodology
30 points Thoroughly describes an exceptional instructional practice/teaching model, explaining the purpose/vision for why it will be implemented.

Teacher?Learner Relationships
10 points Clearly outlines beliefs on effective teacher/learner relationships; strongly aligned with philosophy and practice.

Diversity
10 points Addresses clearly and integrates effectively the consideration of diversity in the overall philosophical argument.

COMPOSITION AND CRITICAL THINKING
Descriptor Advanced Proficient Developing Points Earned
Mechanics
12 points No errors in spelling, grammar, or punctuation.

Composition
16 points All of the following aspects are presented with exceptional quality: coherent, cohesive, sentence and paragraph structures.

Critical Thinking
12 points All the following qualities are present: supports claims with evidence; critically evaluates claims of others; seriously considers/engages with other interpretations

INFORMATION LITERACY / APA

Citation Appropriateness
10 points Exceptional understanding of existing body of knowledge on the topic. Appropriately compares own ideas to those of experts in the field.

Citation Format
4 points All citations are in text and are correctly formatted using APA style guidelines.

Reference Appropriateness
12 points Six references are listed from legitimate sources in the field of educational theory, philosophy, or research. All of the following are represented: book, academic journal, online source.

Reference Format
4 points Bibliographic references are correctly formatted using APA style guidelines.

Essay Instructions: Write a paper that addresses theoretical orientation in race, class and gender in adult learning.
State specific examples of theoretical orientation and describe how each one affects adult education. In a 2-3 page paper, focus on examining how practice can make apparent differences in how educational institutions can deal with issues surrounding these theoretical orientations.
Reflect on the following questions in relationship to your own thinking about adult education practice as it relates to theoretical orientation:
1. What is the purpose of education?
2. What is the role of the adult educator?
3. What is the role of students or adult learners in the classroom?
4. What is your conceptualization of differences among adult learners?
This paper should adhere to APA style standards including the following: Double space, 1” margins, New Times Roman 12pt. font, in text citation of at least three (3) references, title page and a reference page (title page and reference page are not counted as content pages).

Customer is requesting that (Heideger) completes this order.

Essay Instructions: You are to write a 1-page paper, Do Not Use Outside Sources!

Your task:
Reflect upon an agency’s approach to incorporating learning/program objectives into their learning program plans. “What do you see to be the strengths and weaknesses of its approach and why?”


Program, Priorities, Purposes, and Objectives
Priority often used to refer to what is more important to use to hear more broadly to mean having an earlier or antecedent claim to resources, including time, energy, money and so on. Determining current case involves placing all of the ideas/needs identify in an order that reflects the sequence in which they will be addressed or in which they will receive resources. If there are sufficient resources to address all ideas/needs, then there is no need to worry about determining priorities. But there are the few adult educators who have access to enough resources to respond to all ideas/needs that come to their attention.
Purpose a general statement indicating intentions. In the case of program planning and adult education, purpose usually refers to his statement that indicates what a program is designed to accomplish. It provides a rationale for the decision to put time and effort into planning. Purposes are often related to hierarchically two goals and objectives with goals usually being more specific than purposes but less specific than objectives.
Objective as used in program planning and objective is a detailed description of where learners should know or be able to do so as a result of their participation in an educational event. In most cases an objective describes an intended learning outcome as reflected in something that the learner is asked to do-that is, the learner is asked to perform a task that is considered good evidence that the desire learning has taken place. Because learning cannot be directly observed, objectives provide a basis of inferring the degree to which the intended learning has occurred. There may be multiple levels of objectives, which are related to one another in hierarchical fashion.
Background
Determining priorities, purposes and objectives in program planning as part of the continuing challenge of using limited resources to achieve the most by able outcomes. Many adult education programs have their origins in vague or ill-defined needs, ideas, requests, or problems. In these situations the task of those involved in planning is to sharpen the focus of the program so that it can be communicated clearly to those who will have a role to play during instruction and to those who control the resources that will be necessary to offer the program. To be successful, but program planner must be able to design offerings that are consistent with the mission or mandate of the sponsor and are considered a value by the learners for whom they are designed. Although determining priorities, purposes and objectives in a systematic way require some technical knowledge and skills, he more fundamental capabilities require is understanding and, in some case, reconciling the conflicting values that are reflected in these decisions. In most systematic approaches to program planning, needs assessment is used as one means to justify the allocation of resources. Needs assessment is often described as a process in which present states of affairs are determined and judgments are made about more desirable states of affairs. The more desirable states of affairs are value judgment made by those who are in a position to articulate their own needs (and which cases they are felt or motivational needs) or to claim that others have needs (in which case they are ascribed or prescriptive needs). Needs are much more than list of topics are program ideas that come from various stakeholders in educational enterprise. Needs represent competing claims on limited educational resources. Planners can use them to demonstrate that such resources as money, personnel, equipment, facilities, and materials are being used on programs that stakeholders consider valuable. Program planning involves maintaining control over the allocation of scarce resources so that the maximum number of high-value programs can be offer to the sponsor's clients in a way that both sponsors and the other stakeholders like governments, boards, community groups, business and industry representatives, professional associations and so on are satisfied. If stakeholders are not satisfy that correct resource allocation decisions are being me, they will usually take steps to communicate their displeasure and to influence the process used to make these decisions in the future. For example in recent years there has been growing pressure on many public sectors provider of adult education programs to make money for their parent institutions. This pressure from the parent institutions has come in many forms including new, more strict mission statements, and requirements that the adult education unit began paying a share of or increase its contribution to, the sponsors overhead -- rent, utilities, support personnel, supplies come equipment, postage and so on. A natural and necessary response to this pressure is to focus limited resources on programs high and demand war on programs for learners who are both willing and able to pay higher fees to attend. A long-term consequence of this pressure is that the needs of adults who are able and willing to pay higher fees will receive greater attention than the needs of those who are unable or unwilling to pay higher fees. This sometimes subtle transition occurs in the needs assessment and priority setting phases of planning where resources allocation decisions are made. Although needs assessments logically precedes setting program per piece, purposes and objectives, and practicing purposes and objectives are often determined without a needs assessment having first been done. This is possible because, as Houle (1972) rightly points out needs assessment is only one of the many ways that program ideas are identified. Indeed, recent research by Sork (1994) indicates that decisions about what programs will be offered are influenced by dozens of factors, only some of which are related to learning needs.

State of literature
There is a vast literature on the program planning process, but only some of it addresses the topics in this chapter. Determining priorities is often neglected in the leisure. Although most books that address program plan in adult education gives some attention to the needs assessment, only a few authors addressing priority setting as a distinct topic. The process of developing program purpose statement is hardly addressed at all. Most authors seem to assume that purposes are only temporary statements of intent that will be supplanted by more detail object is sold the development of objectives receives more tension. But some practitioners seem unsure of the merits of developing instructional or performance objectives to communicate intent. This may be due to the unfortunate association in some peoples’ minds between instructional objective's and behavior is some. It is an unfortunate association because objectives are useful planning tools even for those with totally reject behavior is them. Using instructional objectives is no way endorses behaviorism, but neither is using them inconsistent with behaviorism. This may seem like a paradox to some, but a review of the tenets of behaviorism followed by a look at the ways objectives have been used in planning quickly shows that objectives of simply one means of clarifying instructional intent regardless of the philosophical or theoretical position from which one is working. Questions like, what kind of objective should be developed? Who should be involved in developing objectives? And how should objective to be used to guide instructional design and evaluation? Are all quite relevant. However the question, should objectives be developed for this program? Is more properly answer based on the preferred planning style, time available and expectations of stakeholders than whether using object is violate the philosophical or theoretical position. One of the issues of object is, the most useful literature is not found readily in adult education but rather from other sectors of education. The best analyses of objectives as tools for planning-including reviews research on the use of objectives and discussion of the arguments for and against using objective’s.

Priorities, purposes, and objectives
Determining priorities, purposes and objectives may be done more or less systematically, and it should not be assumed that approaches at a more systematic and of the continuum are either better or worse than those toward the last systematic end. However at again and sophisticated systematic approaches may seem, the real challenge in program planning is to pick a strategy that is suited to the task and to the resources available to the plan.

Determining program priorities
The processes of determining program parties have received on even attention in the program planning leisure. In failing to address the issues at all, some authors seem to assume that resources will be available to address all needs, program ideas, or problems that are brought to the attention of the planner. Such an assumption seems both naïve and dangerous since there are always constraints on how resources are allocated and expectations about what kinds of programs and related outcomes that will be produced. Other authors have consider priority setting to be an essential element of planning and have offered detailed discussion of how the issues involved and processes that might be useful. For example, Boyle (1981) devoted an entire chapter to parity setting which he begins by observing that: continuing educators usually face the dilemma of too many problems to work on, too much content teach, and too much clientele groups to reach with the time and resources available. So we must make decisions of our program per case. Varity setting is a continuous process of decision making that takes place during all phases of programming including delineating needs, specifying goals, identifying target audience, defining available resources, and determining necessary actions. Caffarella (1994) also devoted a chapter to parity setting in which she observed that rarely can personnel involved with education programs designed programs for all the ideas identified as appropriate for educational programs... therefore, they must have a system for determining which ideas will take perky and planning of actual activities and events. She goes on to propose a process for determining priorities based on four steps: identify the people who should be involved in setting priorities, select or develop appropriate criteria, record the ideas, along with the criteria, on a perky rating chart and design weighting factors to each criterion, and apply each criterion to each idea use in the priority rating chart. Individual values calculated at each step may be and be combined to yield a total priority value for each idea. Developing a perky setting process that could be used by planners and agricultural extension who have decided each year how they will allocate limited resources to what often seems like unlimited needs of their clients. Others have woven the parity setting process into needs assessment so that when the process is completed a list of needs is priority border is produced. For example, proposed a needs assessment approach in which information about competence, relatives and motivation is gathered and can then be used to establish fair case. Gathering data like this during needs assessment saves time and results in a seamless process in which a prioritized list of needs is the final product. My own view of priority setting has shifted from a concerned with specific techniques to focus on more general ways of thinking about the task in making deliberate informed decisions about what factors or criteria should be used to make these important decisions. Following are four ways of approaching perky setting that range from familiar metaphors that can be used in almost any circumstances to more technically demanding and time consuming approaches that might be used and rare situations where every part of the process must be open to scrutiny by various stakeholders.

Filter Approach
Knowles (1980) suggestion using filters or screens to make decisions about priorities. In this case, all needs that are competing for resources are placed in the top of the filter. Does that make it through the three criteria are considered priority needs. Knowles uses a similar approach to determine priorities among program objectives. In his view all possible our objectives are identified and placed into the top of the filter that has three elements (criterion a, criterion b, and criterion c): institutional purposes, feasibility and interest of clientele. Objectives that are not of high perky are screened out by the filters and only high-priority objectives come out of the bottom. Although the three criteria were elements suggested by Knowles are sensible starting points, there could be dozens of other criteria or factors that might be used to sort out high-priority objectives from all those competing for limited resources. Forest and Mulcahy, writing from the context of agricultural extension do not specify criteria but indicate instead that they come from four sources: clientele, community and society, the extension of organization, and self. Criteria in their view can be objective or subjective and should carry different weights in priority decision because some criteria are simply more important than others. Boyle builds on the earlier works of Forest and Mulcahy by suggesting that need should be screened through six factors that influence what program perky should be: personnel, organizational, clientele, community, political, and resources. In Boyle’s view... tar cheese are what is important or by evil at the present time. Programming situations often have a number of priorities at any given time, so it is necessary to decide which priorities are most important. This commitment highlights one of the weaknesses of the filter or screening metaphors as a tool of for thinking about setting priorities and that is that filters and screens produce all or none outcomes. That is, when objectives, needs or program ideas are filtered or screened they either make it into the category of priority or they do not. This still leaves the planner with the potential problem of determining the relative importance of undifferentiated parity needs or objectives. But in most day-to-day priority setting situations the filter metaphor can be a useful tool for arriving at decisions about which competing objectives, needs or program ideas should be attended to first, second, third, and so on. Recent work by Sork 1994, suggests that it is not difficult for practitioners to identify the relative importance of the various criteria used to make priority decisions in their own organizations. Although the set of filter elements (criteria) may change from one priority setting to another the idea after dumping needs or objectives in the top of the filter and allocating resources to those that make it through the various filter elements is easy to apply. Rather using a filter metaphor or want all the other approaches mentioned below eight key task and parity setting is selecting criteria. No single set of criteria is suitable for all adult education settings. It is likely that most are two decisions are based on the few criteria considered important by the decision-makers. Sork and Fielding 1987 identified eight general criteria that they extracted from the literature. Some of these relate to the importance of meeting a need and others to the feasibility of meeting a need. Although most part you setting process is mentioned in the literature focus on par or tea among meets, the approaches could as easily be used to set parties among ideas or objectives. The eight criteria identified by Sork and Fielding are described below with updated descriptions.


Importance criteria
a. Number of people affected, this criterion can be used to establish parity based on the number of people who would potentially benefit if the idea/need was addressed. The greater number of people benefiting, the high on would be the parity of the need.
b. Contribution to goals, this criterion can be used to establish parity based on the degree to which responding to the ideas/needs would contribute to the attainment of organizational goals. It is quite possible to identify ideas/needs which are unrelated to the polls of the sponsoring organization. Such needs would be a much lower priority than needs which are directly related to the goals of the organization (or goals of the community).
c. Immediacy, this criterion can be used to establish priority based on the degree to which each idea/need requires immediate attention. Immediacy is determined by analyzing how the situation has been changing over time. If waiting to respond to the idea/need would increase hardship or represent an important loss opportunity then that idea/need would be higher priority than one where no increase in hardship or loss opportunity is expected.
d. Instrumental value, this criterion can be used to establish parity based on the degree to which responding to one idea/need to will have a positive or negative effect on responding to other ideas/needs. If responding to one idea/need will increase the likelihood that responses to other ideas/needs will be possible, then that idea/need would be high priority. An idea/need that, if response to, would make it more difficult to respond to other ideas/needs would be a very low priority.
e. Magnitude of discrepancy, this criterion can be used to establish parity based on the relative size of the gap for discrepancy between the present and desired capability suggests either program idea or need. This assumes that the basis for an adult education program is always some explicit or implicit gap between what people know and can do now and what they, or someone else, believe they should know or be able to do. Using this criteria places ideas/needs representing a big gap higher in the list of priorities than those with a smaller gap.

Feasibility criteria
1. Educational efficacy, this criterion can be used to establish parity based on the degree to which an educational intervention program or series of programs is the best response to the idea/need. Not all ideas/needs are best addressed by providing educational program. Using this criteria, ideas/needs judged to have a high educational efficacy are considered higher priorities since the told used by programs is education. Idea/needs judged to have low educational efficacy are lower priority and might well be referred to other agencies better able to address the idea/need or cooperative arrangements might be made to employ educational and other means concurrently to illuminate a need requiring more than one approach.
2. Availability of resources, this criterion can be used to establish priority based on the degree to which the resources necessary to develop a program would be available if it is decided that the idea/need should be addressed. Use of this criterion involves making a judgment about the potential availability of human, financial, physical, hardware and software resources necessary to organize a program. Idea/needs for which all or most of the required resources are potentially available or for which few or no resources are required to which be given higher priority than those for which the necessary resources would not be available.
3. Commitment to change, this criterion would be used to establish priority based on the degree to which stakeholders are committed to eliminating the ideas/need. Stakeholders are people who have a vested interest in the success or failure of the efforts to address the idea/needs; they are often in a position to help or hinder the programmers at first develop and implement programs. Using this criterion involves identifying stakeholders, deciding the relative importance of each stakeholder’s commitment, and accessing the commitment to change of each individual or group.
But these criteria are from the literature and may or may not reflect the criteria commonly used in practice. During the past five years I have surveyed 368 practitioners in Canada and Asia who work in a wide range of adult education settings in an effort to understand the relative importance of 48 different criteria that have been identified as influencing resource allocation decisions. Following is a listing of 10 most important criteria as identified by these practitioners: potential benefit to participants, availability of funding, contributions organization objectives, consistency with organizations philosophy, urgency of the need, potential demand for the program, contributions organization's productivity, previous success with the program, number of potential participants, and contribution to individual performance.

The list confirms that many different factors are taken into account before a decision is made to allocate scarce organizational resources to design and offer a program. Although the study reveals that something about the criteria that are used to established Archie's, it reveals nothing about how providers approach the task of resource allocations. In the practical world the today program planning decisions are resource allocations are most likely made continuously rather than only after a needs assessment for some other system process is completed. So it is more likely that the constant barrage of program ideas, needs, and objectives that planners encounter are figured we passed through a filter a minimum criteria before any resources would be allocated unless the ideas, needs or interest was consider within the mandate or mission of the organization or group in which the plan or work. There are many other similar minimum criteria used to make an initial assessment before any additional time or money is spent on planning. The metaphor of Sluice box may be a better fit with the realities of practice. A sluice box is a device used in placer mining to separate the valuable gold from the worthless sand, gravel, and dirt. Gold-bearing materials is placed in the sluice box through which a stream of water runs. The force of the water flushes the lighter worthless material out the end of the box while the heavier goldfish trapped by baffles placed in the bottom of the box. In a similar fashion a constant flow of program ideas and needs competing for attention become known to various adult education providers who then apply criteria to sort out those that will receive attention from those that will not. In effect providers of adult education become adept at selecting from the flow of ideas and needs those that are consistent in their mission and with the criteria they use to allocate resources. The key is to bring successful at this task is both to be aware of the program ideas and needs and to have a clear understanding of what criteria should be used to decide which will receive attention.

Importance-feasibility approach
In other relatively straightforward way of thinking of our current to setting is to consider only two broad dimensions of each need: importance and feasibility. Importance is not an empirically derived characteristic of ideas or needs but is a judgment made by people after considering such factors as the consequences of not taking any action the value that various stakeholders attached responding to the ideas or needs and so on. Feasibility is also a judgment that is made after considering such issues as whether the resources required to respond are available whether the effort to respond willing encounter active resistance or support the degree to which an educational intervention is the most suitable response and so on. These judgments are simply represented by the words low or high but they could just as easily be represented by the number on the scale with 1 representing very low importance and feasibility and 5 or 10 representing very high importance and feasibility. The judgment for each needed are plotted on a graph and fall into one of the quadrants. Those falling in quadrant one are low in both importance and feasibility and therefore would not likely be allocated resources. Those falling in quadrant for our high in both importance and feasibility and would call for immediate and feral attention. Those in quadrants two and three falls somewhere in between. Needs that are low in feasibility but high in importance watcher and three could be addressed using an innovative but experimental approach requiring modest resources and low levels of political support. In other words a relatively risk-free pilot project would be suitable response because it would be consider an experiment and as such would not require a substantial commitment of resources and would be relatively nonthreatening to those who might otherwise be opposed to programming in that area. It may also be desirable to respond to the needs that are high in feasibility but low in importance Quadrant 2 if doing so would make it easier to respond to other needs now or in the future. Determining priorities using the two dimensional graphing approach is straightforward and easy to explain but is limited in that it results in decisions based only on the two broad dimensions of importance and feasibility. For some planners in some settings decisions using only two dimensions may not be defensible in which case a ranking or rating approach may be more useful.

Ranking approach
for planning situations require a more systematic approach to our Archie setting a ranking chart can be used simple ranking chart they can be used to establish parity among competing programs ideas or needs. Those making decisions about priorities would select criteria a, b, c and so on, would determine weighting of each criterion and then Rink each idea or need under each criterion. Weights are whole numbers like 1, 2, 3, and so on that are multiplied by ranking to give a weighted ranking for each need. A weight of 1 would be given to the criterion that should carry the least weight in priority setting while a higher number would give any proportionally more weight to a criterion in the final decision although it may be illogical to assign more important criteria higher numbers when the high-priority ideas or needs are assigned lower numbers the process has the desired effect of increasing the influence of the more heavily weighted criteria on the final priority ranking while maintaining the conventional of using #1 as the highest ranked. The best way to apply the weighting scheme is to first Rink each idea or need under criterion without considering the weightings and then go back to multiply the rankings by the weighting factors for each criterion. This technique works best with a limited number of needs since the chart and the task of ranking would get quite unmanageable with more than a dozen or so needs.

Rating approach
one of the weaknesses of using the ranking approach is that it is very difficult to apply if there are more than 10 or so ideas or needs under consideration. It is simply too difficult a task to wring more than this number of ideas or needs. A simple solution to this problem is to switch to a rating approach. The only difference between the two is that instead of ranking all the ideas or needs -- that is, assigning each idea or need a rank from 1 to n where n is the total number of ideas or needs -- each idea or need is rated on a scale from 1-5 or 1-10 in which the lower number represents more priority ideas or needs and the higher number represents the higher priority needs. Determining and using the weighting factors for the criteria would be the same as described above for the ranking approach. Ratings are then multiplied by weights and a sum of weighted rating is calculated. Each sum is then divided by the number of the criteria to yield a mean rating for each idea or need. The higher the mean rating, the higher the parity of that idea or need, idea/need #7 is the highest parity. The reason for this is the reserve of the ranking approach is that in ranking a lower number is considered high in rank and in rating a higher numbers considered higher rated. The four ways of thinking about setting priorities are certainly not the only ones available to adult educators. Those interested in other ways of approaching the task may wish to read work by Kemmerer 1984 who focus on setting priorities and community development work and who discusses a paired-comparisons approach to setting priorities in University extension work.

Determining program purposes and objectives
The objectives movement had a powerful influence on educating during the past 30 years but he has not been without its critics. Brookfield 1986 captured well the strong feelings held by some about and over emphasis on using specific objectives in adult education. He said that as both professor and student, nothing has proved more irksome to me than the insistence that for educational encounters to be valuable there must always be clearly specify learning objectives that are being assiduously pursued. Overzealous promoters of behavioral or performance objective share some of the blame for the backlash that has occurred in reaction to the objectives movement. This backlash has been so strong that some authors have rejected outright to use the objective to adult education because they are seen as instruments for undemocratic, institutionally base controlled educational experiences that serve only the interests of dominate groups. Unfortunately these critics have reached a verdict on objectives largely based on their misuse. Objectives are planning to switch like any tool can be used properly or improperly. There is nothing inherently undemocratic about objectives that there are certainly undemocratic issues of objectives. There is nothing inherently self-serving about using objectives although they can certainly be use and a self-serving fashion. And the matter of control in planning is a red herring since every effort to plan is an effort to control. The question is whether or not control will be exercise but who will be making the decisions influencing the direction of the education experience. If learners develop their own objectives or have substantial involvement in the development of program objectives then control is democratized. If an institution develops objectives that are rigidly pursued and nonnegotiable then control is centralized. Since the object movement has its origins in schools where learners have little to say about expected outcomes it is not surprising that there is a suspicion about any objectives which learners are not directly involved in developing. Objectives are useful planning tools because they clarify the intentions of those were involved in planning and can be used to communicate those intentions to potential participants, sponsors, instructors, and so on. When properly used they are also the most powerful tool available for clarifying the expected effects a learning experience will have on the capabilities of participants. When misused they become excuses for inflexible, teacher oriented, quarters of injection, and overly behavioral, quantitative evaluation approaches. Over the past 45 years many proposals have been made about what constitutes a useful objective. Following are brief summaries of several of the better-known proposals beginning with Tyler's formulation. Each of these proposals it should be noted was designed to overcome weaknesses that were thought to accompany earlier formulations.

Tyler's approach
Although Tyler 1949, was not the first to argue that clearly stated objectives were important tools and educational planning his curriculum planning framework with its emphasis on developing object instead decided expected changes in learners, was very influential. Tyler criticized objectives that describe what he teacher expected to do during instruction or that described in vague or imprecise fashion what students would learn and propose that the most useful objectives were those that describe significant changes in students and behaviors. He asserted that since the real purpose of education is not to have the instructor perform certain activities but to bring about significant change in the students patterns of behavior it becomes important to recognize that any statement that the objectives of the school should be a statement of change to take place in the student. He proposed the development of objectives that have two components: one component indicates the kind of behavior to be developed and the author describes the area of content or of life in which the behavior is to be applied. Although Tyler's framework was intended to guide curriculum development in the schools it has significant and lasting impact on adult education as well. The origins of many contemporary program planning models can be traced quite easy to what became known as the Tyler rationale.

Mager’s approach
In the early 1960s the behaviorism was still on the ascendancy Mager 1962, produced a thin volume which was designed to help educators-especially those developing program instructor materials -- prepare clear and unambiguous instructional objectives. Mager introduced the idea that useful objective should contain three elements. If any of these three elements was missing an objective was less useful than if it contained all three. Mager’s text itself a program instructed manual, use humor calmer clear writing and dozens of example to show how fuzzies-vagueness or ambiguous statements of intended outcomes -- could be converted into useful objectives. Three elements that Mager propose should be included in useful objective's are as follows: performance, and objective always say is what a learner is expected to be able to do, conditions and objective always describes the important conditions under which will performance is to occur, and criterion and objective describes criterion of acceptable performance by describing how well the learner must form in order to considered acceptable. Mager’s approach to writing objectives was attractive to educators because he provided an easy-to-follow formula to arrive at useful objective set will fit the current thinking about the importance of focusing on student performance. His approach also made it much easier to buy a waste of learning because the object is contained that only a distortion of what students would be expects to do but also the conditions under which they would do it and expectations about how well they would to it. Although Tyler's proposed using objectives as a basis for evaluating learning it was Mager who help educators develop such specific objectives that made evaluating student learning a much easier task. Developing Mager-style objective was not in any sense mindless work. He required precise language and careful selection of birds use to describe performance. He forced planners to be specific about outcomes much earlier in the curriculum development process than they had previously and this was considered an important advance over other approaches. I putting a great deal of energy into developing unambiguous objectives, the selection of instructional method and evaluation procedures became much less arduous.

Gronlund’s approach
Gronlund’s 1995 style of comparing objectives has advantage of being somewhat less mechanistic than Mager’s 1984 approach. He views objectives as descriptions of intended learning outcomes that emphasizes what students will be able to do following instruction. What makes Gronlund’s approach different from the others is that he proposes using two types of statements to represent intended learning outcomes. The first aid and he calls a general instructional objective. The statements provide an overall view of the intended outcomes and the use language that Mager would consider fuzzy. For example a Gronlund’s-style general instructional objective would be understands common terms used in adult education. Such a statement would not be acceptable to Mager because it does not describe performance, identify conditions, or secretary of for except will performance, although it would be likely to be considered acceptable to Tyler's approach. But Gronlund’s suggested all general instructional objective should be accompanied by statements describing specific learning outcomes which would be more acceptable to Mager. Examples of specific learning outcomes related to the above general instructional objectives are: define each term as it is commonly used in the literature, distinguishes between similar terms, and a use each term accurately in an original sentence. Gronlund’s emphasizes that specific learning outcomes are only samples of a vast array of statements that could represent evidence that the intended learning had occurred in the case of the sample objectives above the intended outcomes is understanding. In Gronlund’s view verbs like defining, distinguishing and using represent students actions that provide evidence that understanding has been achieved. Gronlund’s also argues that our objectives are less likely to limit the activities and choices of instructor if they do not contain conditions and centers. Although he recognizes the objectives which include conditions and stamps are very useful in programmed instruction and simple training programs he is concerned that such specific statements when used in more complex instructional settings can limit the options open to the instructor and reduced spontaneity and creativity.

Gagne, Briggs and Wager’s approach
Gagne and his colleagues 1990 to suggest a five-component objective that they believe communicates instructional intent even more precisely than Mager or Gronlund’s style objectives. In their view, and objective is precisely describe when he communicates to another person that would have to be done to observe that a stated lesson purpose has in fact been accomplished. The statement is imprecise if it does not enable the other person to think of how to carry out such an observation. In developing the case for precision in repairing objectives, they make an important point that seems to escape many critics of the objectives movement. Gagne and his colleagues are responding to the same concerned that Gronlund’s head when he proposed using both general instructional objectives and specific learning outcomes to communicate intent. In both cases the authors are concerned that those reading objectives would confuse the Berg described performance intended learning. The five components of objective suggested by Gagne and his colleagues are as follows: situation the stimulus situation faced by the learner when asked to perform, learned capability verb one of nine birds used to indicate the type of learning expected, objective the content of the learner's performance, action verb a verb, other than a learned capability verb, that describes how the performance is to be completed, and tools, constraints, or special conditions a description of equipment/devices that will be use, performance standards, and other circumstances under which the learner must perform. Gagne et al., do not claim that all our objectives should have all five components. They state that if you can communicate unambiguously without all five components than do so. Many of their examples include all except the tools, constraints, and special condition components. While they approach to developing objectives may be considered too detail and mechanistic for some it does represent a powerful albeit time-consuming, tool for clarifying intended outcomes. In some program planning situation developing exquisite objectives may be neither necessary nor desirable. For example in cases where the role of the adult educator is to animate a group of adults sold that its members take responsibility for identifying what they want to learn, how they want to learn it and for organizing the resources necessary to support their learning, been developing objectives in advance may hinder the group more than it helps the group. Also in situations with the learning outcomes cannot reasonably be anticipated or where the outcomes are sufficiently complex that they cannot be ethically represented in objectives, forcing the development of objectives may trivialize the nature of the program and mislead learners about the complexity of expected outcomes. In these cases it may be more useful to prepare a narrative description of the intended outcome free of the constraints imposed by more systematic approach is to prepare and objectives. The same price we paid when doing this however is that the planet may be accused of have any hidden agenda that they are not willing to rebuilt others, or that they have not thought carefully enough about intended outcome since if they hand they surely could prepare a list of objectives.

Alternative to objectives in program planning
It seems apparent from talking with dozens of practitioners and participating in planning meaning different kinds of programs that developing exquisite objectives is not necessary for the success in program planning. But what is necessary for the success is a relatively clear understanding of the intentions of those who are involved in planning. Objectives are one means to clarify intentions but there are other tools available that may be used individually or in combination to provide adequate clarity for many planning situations. Following are brief discussions of several alternative approaches which are not as powerful as objectives but that can be effective ways of clarifying intended outcomes if developing programs or instructional objectives is not considered the best use of limited planning time.

Purposes approach
This approach relies on description of the purpose of the program to communicate intended outcomes. Statement of purposes generally lack the precise language of objectives and cannot be used in the same
ways as objectives to guide instructional planning for evaluation. But a clear and concise purpose statement is a very good way to suggest that the program is designed to accomplish and can give potential participants and instructors a recently clear idea of why the program is being offered. Example: the purpose of this program is to encourage participants to adopt innovative approaches to competent resolution and to show how conflict resolution entities can be used to improve organizational effectiveness. This example of a purpose statement does not say anything directly about what participants will be capable of doing as result of the program but it does allow some inferences to be made about outcomes. From this statement it would be reasonable to conclude that participants will learn about innovative approaches to conflict resolution in organizations and that the program will help them develop the skills and knowledge necessary to use these approaches in their own work. In some cases, the word purpose may not be use at all but the statement can be prefaced with the phrase, the purpose of the program is... and it makes sense than the purpose approaches being used.


Processes approach
The processes approach relies on description or work will take place during the education program to communicate intended outcomes. Most descriptions of the process only hints at intended outcomes rather than describe them directly so it may only be possible to infer outcomes from descriptions of process. Example: this program will provide participants with an opportunity to assess their current assertiveness skills, to practice new assertiveness skills in simulated work situations, and to develop strategies to help them to apply assertiveness skills are perfectly in their work, family, and social lives. The three parts of the statement described what will be happening during the program, but it is not difficult to read into the statements what at least some of the intended outcomes are. For example, by the end of the program participants will understand that assertiveness skills they are ready possess will have developed the ability to apply new skills at work and will have learned how to develop a plan of action to use the current and new skills and in their lives. Again these outcomes must be inferred from the description of instructional processes, but this is not a difficult process.

Content approach
This approach relies on listing and discussing program topics of content and often leaves it to the reader to infer intended outcomes from the listing. Example: this program will include an introduction to transformational learning; distinguishing transformational learning from other types of learning; recent research on transformational learning; facilitating transformational learning; evaluating the outcomes of transformational learning. This listing contains no direct statements about intended outcomes but by analyzing the topics it is possible to infer the outcomes. Potential participants reasonably expect some indication of program content before they decide to dissipate and many institutions and agencies seem to rely on the content approach exclusively. This practice is potentially dangerous because the inferences
that people make about outcomes can go far beyond the ability of the program to deliver. Listing topics to be covered can lead learners to believe that they will developing more than a superficial understanding of -- or will develop advanced skills related to -- those topics. When used as a planning tool the content approach can be useful because it helps to clarify what will be included in the program. But it use exclusively it leaves a great deal to interpretation and may lead to misunderstandings between planners and instructors and between programs from sponsors and participants.

Benefits approach
This approach involves describing an anticipated benefits to participants of attending the program. Example: by attending this program you will be able to have greater influence on people, at power and polished to your professional image, and handle difficult people. Statements such as these are similar to goals and objectives but they lack the specificity of well-written objectives. They communicate intended outcomes more directly than some of the other approaches because few inferences have to be made from them. However they are not as specific as objectives and since they often described in its related to a job or family life, are very difficult to use as a basis for program evaluation. In other words benefits are useful for communicating the focus of program and for marketing a program that they may create expectations that the program cannot fulfill.

Combined approaches
Combinations of these approaches are also used to clarify intended outcomes of programs. Some planners may prefer to clarify outcomes by beginning with the purpose approach then moved to a more specific description using an objective was processes, content or benefit approach. An analysis of program descriptions would likely reveal that combined approaches are the most frequent use means to clarify intended outcomes with clients. Regardless of the process use it is always important to keep in mind the relationship between the various elements of program planning. Clarifying outcomes were done using purposes, objectives, benefits or any other approach is one element in program planning that is related to many others. For example, clarifying outcomes is directly related to both instructional planning and evaluation. In conventional program planning outcomes are defined and been instruction is crafted to promote those outcomes. Evaluation is connected, in part, and determining the degree to which the program produces the expected outcomes. So the process of clarifying outcomes is never an end in itself but rather is one element in the complex process of program planning.