Teachers can design holistic teaching practices by creating lessons
which incorporate learning experiences from all three domains: the
cognitive
(thinking), the affective (feeling), and
the psychomotor or physical (kinesthetic, tactile,
and/or physical). Material in the psychomotor taxonomy is very
narrowly defined and should be reserved to specific skilled or interpretive
movements. If you are supporting one of the other domains with physical
movement or physical activity, merely label that objective as physical
and avoid the term psychomotor to avoid confusion.
While educational objectives are currently written in the most common
form as behavioral objectives (those using explicit verbs), at more artistic
and sophisticated levels objectives may be written also as problem-solving
objectives, or as expressive activities that lead to expressive
outcomes. All three types of objectives should be valued parts of comprehensive
curricula.
The advantage to creating more holistic objectives (ones that fall
into more than one domain) is that this process creates additional neural
pathways. This allows learners to more easily remember material and processes.
In the past there has been an over-dependence on writing just cognitive
objectives. It will be easier to develop holistic objectives in some areas
of study over others. For instance, some educators find it hard to form
affective objectives in the area of math. While this may be true, it is
imperative for educators not to intentionally ignore instances where an
array of domains can be included in lessons.
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