Comments on: Here’s an Easy Way to Create Learning Objectives

By: Gummistiefel

Gummistiefel — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:50:14 +0000

One thing that often isn’t incorporated into teaching (well everywhere that I’ve been educated) is a consistent emphasis on the student progress. A lot of teachers simply fire information at you in a way that best suits them without giving much thought into the consequences. As you say, the idea of learning objectives is simple but revolutionary. This having been said, perhaps it would be worthwhile having regular assessment and a means of comparing performance against objectives. It makes the teacher end of the bargain appear more useful than them simply standing up and feeding you information. Obviously there is only so much ‘babying’ that can be done on their behalf, but I think incorporating something following the method just discussed isn’t asking too much! A big challenge (sadly) in school is realising the deficiencies in the methods of teaching, seeing past them and ‘playing the game’. We all handle that in different ways. It would be nice however to not have so much to see past

By: Thomas , Zauberer Zauberkünstler

Thomas , Zauberer Zauberkünstler — Sun, 31 May 2009 06:33:24 +0000

Hi there,
I found great ideas and discussing on your Web site.
Well done ! Thanks for that and keep on doing
Greetings from germany , Thomas

By: Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 06:37:36 +0000

Thanks for your article. I cleared my interview with success.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:49:03 +0000

I’ve just started in the whole e-learning business. And this topic gave me a good start in how to start with setting up a new course. And not just start to fill it up with ervery bit of information you can get your hands on

By: Flüge

Flüge — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:14:10 +0000

Nice article one can aspire to in order do structure curses and document the outcomes. This could be embedded into a workflow like SVN for example: http://subversion.tigris.org/

By: Mattias Wirf

Mattias Wirf — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:15:57 +0000

Just wanted to stop by and say I like this post and you blog, have it in my Greader Going to develop some courses for the spring and this is a big help to focus my thoughts.

By: David Medcalf

David Medcalf — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:26:12 +0000

Tom, great content again. Coming from the UK armed forces we would always develop objectives for our training and (in answerto one of the above comments)in my University post I would always insist my design staff create objectives in conjunction with the client, else how do we know if the training meets the client’s needs, and how do we measure the students achievements?

My only objection here is in your first part of the objective statement. “The course will teach….” We teach; the course is incapable of teaching anything. The course can enable, allow, provide etc… This may sound pedantic but but getting the wording right we clarify what we are trying to achieve, in a measureable way. Otherwise there would be little to stop us creating great teaching materials which may not meet the learner’s needs, and then claiming success as we taught them the subject, they just failed to learn it.

I would also ask what about including the standards such as accuracy and time limits in the objective to make the success criteria measureable in real terms? “with than 5% rejects per batch, within 12 hours of them being submitted by staff.”

By: Blair R

Blair R — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:04:21 +0000

Also, you can add a test to each user story that will tell you if that feature/requirement has been met.

For example,

Using THE ACME PAYROLL SYSTEM AND A JOB AID, EDIT THIS WEEKS TIME CARDS.

If a user (learner in instructional design terms) can perform this test and pass it then the course passes it’s UAT and can be released (published) much like a new software feature can be released once it has passed UAT.

By: Blair R

Blair R — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 22:57:53 +0000

I like the concept of user stories from agile software development.

As a xxxx
I can xxxx
So xxxx

For example,

As a FRONTLINE MANAGER
I can USE THE ACME PAYROLL SYSTEM TO EDIT TIME CARDS (OR WHATEVER IT WAS)
So MY STAFF CAN GET PAID THE RIGHT AMOUNT ON TIME

By: David

David — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:06:16 +0000

Thanks for a very simple explanation. We use “ABCD”

A-udience (who needs to learn it)
B-ehavior (what they need to do- keyword: do, not “know”- but there are “knowledge checks” for things like understanding of policy embedded in our courses- generally an enabling objective is knowledge based whereas our terminal objectives are performance based)
C-ondition (what tools/resources/environment is in play – in your example, it might be written in our world as “edit employee timecards using the ACME payroll system)
D-egree (what/how you will measure to determine completion)

Seems to resonate with our SMEs.

Did want to comment on “you are here and need to be there”- when I add to that “and we need to develop the most cost-effective resources that folks will use to move them from here to there”- is when CEOs who don’t speak training lingo immediately understand. Seen too many confuse CEOs with training terms and lose the opportunity.

As always, thanks for another focused, thoughtful, and easily digestable post.