I will answer with a chapter which explicitly tackles the question of what educational aims are in Dewey:
Waks, L. (2017). A Democratic Theory of Aims: On Chapter 8: Aims in Education. In L. Waks & A. English (Eds.), John Dewey's Democracy and Education: A Centennial Handbook (pp. 73-80). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316492765.011
TL;DR
Essentially, yes. But it makes a huge difference as to how aims guide an activity since effectively, ends do guide an activity as well. A concept central to Dewey's theory here is "growth". Educational aims should enable/guide the student to become a better learner by themselves and in their way while they fulfil their assignment and produce a result.
On aims and ends
The author has the following to say on educational aims:
Dewey situates educational aims within the context of democratic education by setting up a contest between two ways of approaching aims. As he says, “we are rather concerned with the contrast which exists when aims belong within the process in which they operate and when they are set up from without” (MW 9: 107). This also turns out to be the distinction between democratic and authoritarian aims. “The vice of externally imposed ends has deep roots. Teachers receive them from superior authorities; [...] The teachers impose them
upon children” (MW 9: 115). (p.73)
Thus, I would say there is no such thing as a clear-cut difference between aims and ends since the author states that authoritarian educational aims are "externally imposed ends". This is repeated several times throughout the chapter.
At the same time, we have the aims in democratic education, which is what Dewey really wants to write about:
Dewey wants us to attend to how aims actually enter into action in educational settings; he wants to move from theories and dictates about what the ideal ends of education should be to a naturalistic theory of how aims – especially good ones – actually work in education. (ibid)
That is, the aims would have to be part of (or be intrinsic in) the endeavour of education (or, from a learner's perspective, learning) and should have to do with how to improve education/learning itself, which in modern terms is often called the improvement of "self-competence". And that is where, in some sense, there is a distinction to be made between "results/ends" and "aims".
On democratic educational aims
“Since aims relate always to results,” Dewey says, “the first thing to look to when it is a question of aims, is whether the work assigned possesses intrinsic continuity” (MW 9: 108).
Thus, aims do give a "horizon" or "goal", but they do not determine the way, so that the work is a continuous "guided" but not "determined" approach towards the end. Dewey uses the example of giving a student ("Junior") either the assignment of "write an essay (with some goal posts)" or "complete this list":
Where does continuity – one of Dewey’s favorite terms – enter the picture?
The aim provides a useful target within the activity, one that we can keep in
mind as we organize steps to achieve it. In the term paper project, the aim –
3000 words, ten footnotes, a narrowly formulated thesis, a deadline – gives
Junior both a target to hit and continuous guidance as he searches for, selects,
and uses reference materials. Junior is building continuously toward a desired
result – an acceptable paper – drawing upon his prior knowledge and interests
as well as what unfolds in the research process – and his powers are thus
growing.
Suppose, however, that instead of a term paper the professor assigned a mere
checklist of thirty historical events to be described in two sentences each. “They
come from the common core standards and are all going to be on the test,” she
says. But what is Junior’s aim in that case? His study activities have no intrinsic
continuity – they do not build upon each other toward something larger. They are
a “mere serial aggregate of acts [...] dictated by the teacher,” and “the only order
in the sequence [...] comes from the assignment of lessons and the giving of directions by another” (MW 9: 108). Junior could start at the end or middle of the
checklist as well as the beginning, and it would not make any difference. His
activity in filling in the checklist is thus not guided by an aim. The work does not
build to a result, and Junior is not growing – he is just going through the motions. (pp.75-76, bolded mine)
Thus, the main difference for Dewey is whether the student has to determine their way of learning and its contents themselves (learning in learning), or they are given ends of learning, ie. both form and content. In the former case, the student learns something about how they are able to get access to contents, how to set themselves particular ends, about their interests and, in the end, what and how to learn itself. It draws upon who the learner is and their abilities (a third factor I will exclude here since the answer is too long already is the specific context in which the learning situation takes place) and, at the same time, guides them in an improvement of these abilities by providing an aim. That is meant by "growth", which is basically a continuation of personal development within the activity:
“The net conclusion,” Dewey states, “is that acting with an aim is all one with
acting intelligently. To foresee a terminus of an act is to have a basis upon
which to observe, to select, and to order objects and our own capacities”
(MW 9: 110). Unlike writing a term paper or planning a picnic, filling in a
checklist does not require intelligence; it is a mindless activity. It does not build
capabilities through taking action, meeting obstacles, and taking further action;
it’s just doing the same old thing over and over. In doing so, Junior is being
shaped by a force outside of himself, a teacher, a district curriculum committee,
or a national commission; he is not becoming a free person, a force in his own
development, or a democratic citizen – a force in his community. (p. 76, bolded mine)
Thus, aims should allow for continuity both in the sense of continuous development of a result and continuous development of the person within one and the same activity. This cannot be accomplished by ends alien to the particular learner or "set up from without", as Dewey wrote (first quote).
