Skip to main content

Part of the Design of Learning is knowing the endgame. In other words - what do we need the learner to know after the training is complete?

This often appears in the form of a learning objective.

How do you come up with a learning objective?

Consider these two examples.

Caring For Your New Puppy

Learning Objectives:

  • Understand how to care for a puppy.

 

Caring For Your New Puppy

Learning Objectives:

  • Given a puppy and several common scenarios, teenagers will correctly choose the best care response 90% of the time.

In the first example, I think it is fair to say we want our learners in this course to understand how to do that but how do you measure that? Do they truly understand or did they simply regurgitate some content? Is a quiz good enough? Have you seen these kinds of objectives before?

In the second example, you can get a better sense of how that measurement will take place. A learning objective such as this one will not only help the learner know what is expected but I would argue that it will also help make the crafting of your assessments a bit easier as well. What about a scenario based assessment where you play the role of a new puppy owner making decisions about the necessary care as a story progresses? I would argue that something like this is not only more engaging but would also get us much closer to determining if the learner really knows what to do in certain situations.

This method of writing learning objectives is known as the ABCD method.

A-udience
B-ehavior
C-onditions
D-egree of Mastery

Let’s break down the example.

Given a puppy and several common scenarios, teenagers will correctly choose the best care response 90% of the time.

Remember that if you’re using a backwards approach to your design that you are establishing the objectives first and it is those objectives that will help guide the assessment. It is important to determine what will be acceptable as evidence of learning. Writing the objectives in terms of what is needed to be considered acceptable is a good way to keep focus and can help designers/developers with creating experiences. Learning isn’t always about repeating facts but behavior change.

What do you think? Go ahead and share your methods of writing objectives. How do you decide what evidence is good enough?

Thought provoking - thanks very much!

Admittedly, more of a perspective about the course description than the objectives, but for course descriptions, I like to use the PPP framework. It’s something I learned in a public speaking/presentation training class some time ago, and I’ve found it works well for authoring simple, concise, and actionable course descriptions.

PPP is an acronym for Purpose, Process, Payoff. Its theory is PPP encapsulates answers to the three questions people have when deciding whether to engage in a presentation/training.

  • Purpose: What’s the purpose of attending?
  • Process: What’s going to be covered?
  • Payoff: What will I learn/be able to do if I attend?

As such, my basic fill-in-the-blank course description is:

The purpose of this course is to <CENTRAL OBJECTIVE OF THE ENTIRE COURSE>. During this <DURATION> course, you’ll learn about <TOPICS BEING DISCUSSED>. After attending this course, you’ll be able to <SKILL ACQUIRED IN COURSE>.

For an employee onboarding course, my description might read:

The purpose of this course is to welcome you to the company. During this 1-hour course, you’ll learn about the firm's history, our mission and values, leadership, and markets served today. After attending this course, you’ll acquire a foundational understanding of our organizational structure, and how we strive to live our mission and values in the work we do.

@dgladfelter - great tip! Thanks for sharing.

Reply


Terms & ConditionsCookie settings