Instructional objectives are related to the practice in operant conditioning of specifying the behavior to be learned before shaping begins. In an educational setting we specify what the learner will be able to do at the end of the instruction. Doing so makes instructional design much more efficient and direct.
Example: Following this course you will be able to recognize the type of operant conditioning occurring in a new situation.
Programmed instruction was an early version of computer-assisted instruction, in a way. In each the behavior to be learned is broken down into its components and each step is carefully taught with active student responding and immediate feedback. Each step must be mastered before going on.
These two share the same characteristics as programmed instruction in terms of not moving ahead until you've mastered the current step. They include the idea of allowing a student to go at his or her own pace until the material is mastered.
Some instructional designs are based on the idea of creating a contract between the learner and the teacher. The contract specifies the behavior to be learned and the process that will be undertaken to learn it. If the contract is fulfilled the student receives the agreed upon grade. If not, he/she fails.
This is really just the term used for the application of operant conditioning to classroom or behavior management. So things like token economies specify contingencies for a whole range of behaviors. Students or clients earn tokens toward some desired end.