Once someone in your audience becomes a student you’ll need to take them from where they
are and point them in the right direction to where they need to be.
You can do this by creating “learning objectives”
What Are Learning Objectives?
Learning objectives are clear statements of what your students will achieve.
Basically saying ….at the end of this course or module you will be able to “do” something Now how “complex and specific” an objective is, will determine the wording to use. For example to “remember” a cake recipe, would be easier than to “create” a new cake recipe.
A useful tool to help you think through this is Blooms Taxonomy. It classifies learning objectives into steps from easy to difficult …and offers suggested verbs to use.
The steps increasing in complexity are remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate and
create.
So applying this to cake recipes. Remember…might be to recall a cake recipe.
- Understand could be to explain why you need each ingredient and mix them in a certain way.
- Apply is likely where they’ll make and bake a cake
- Analyse could be to examine what happens to a cake with different ingredients and techniques.
- Evaluate might mean to assess ‘why’ different ingredients change a cake.
- Then create, which could be to develop an entirely new cake recipe
Applying this thinking will help you articulate what you ‘actually’ want your students to achieve.
Now even though there is an order of complexity it doesn’t mean you have to teach in that order. It may make sense to start with “apply” to set the context and then move down to “remember” and “understand”.
Putting it All Together
So coming back to wording learning objectives, atthe end of this course or module you will be able to “do” something. You can replace “do” with an appropriate verb to articulate the objective complexity.
So my cake recipe course learning objective might be: At the end of this course you will be able to “create” any cake that you can image.
Summary
Take some time to consider what learning objectives you have for your students and we’ll apply this thinking in the next couple of modules when you name your students destination and map their journey to get there.
Action For You
Refer back here as you create your course name and course outline over the next few modules.
Let Us Know In The Comments
You don’t alway have to build up from a low level learning objective because your student may already be at a certain level.
Will your course be catering for absolute beginners?
Notes
To help define your learning objective clearly use blooms taxonomy verbs
- Remember – define, identify, explain, list, repeat
- Understand – classify, summarise, explain, locate, select
- Apply – use, solve, complete, draw, operate
- Analyse – devise, conclude, contrast, compare, examine
- Evaluate – judge, defend, predict, score, convince
- Create – design, invent, write, assemble, construct
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