Most clients have a specific outcome in mind for learners when they initiate an e-learning project. So how do you make sure learners reach the desired learning destination? By creating clear ...
Published 11 years ago
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Hi Heather. For me good objectives start with accurately selecting verbs to describe what students will do in the course so the objectives can be used to guide the content, activities, and assessments.
When the instructor is not clear on what they want you see phrases like: "Students will be able to demonstrate..." when they do not actually demonstrate anything. I find a backwards design approach can help in these situations. How does the instructor plan to measure whether students have the prerequisite knowledge? If it is an automated quiz, for example, what actions will they take to answer the questions? What will students actually do during the quiz to show competence? A matching activity? Create a list? Order the steps of an analysis?
Students will match the physical structures of the Java coding architecture to their functions to a standard of 90% correct before beginning this course.
Students will list the ten most important parts of the Java coding architecture before beginning this course.
Students will plan their analysis of a coding project by naming the nine steps of code analysis (I'm making this up)and ordering them along a timeline.
I think for a prerequisite course, having all four pieces of the formal objective is helpful. The audience, the action, the conditions of performance and the standard. In many if not most cases, we tend to narrow the objectives to the audience and the verb when, particularly in e-learning, we need all four to give students a clear idea of what is expected.
When the instructor is not clear on what they want you see phrases like: "Students will be able to demonstrate..." when they do not actually demonstrate anything. I find a backwards design approach can help in these situations. How does the instructor plan to measure whether students have the prerequisite knowledge? If it is an automated quiz, for example, what actions will they take to answer the questions? What will students actually do during the quiz to show competence? A matching activity? Create a list? Order the steps of an analysis?
Students will match the physical structures of the Java coding architecture to their functions to a standard of 90% correct before beginning this course.
Students will list the ten most important parts of the Java coding architecture before beginning this course.
Students will plan their analysis of a coding project by naming the nine steps of code analysis (I'm making this up)and ordering them along a timeline.
I think for a prerequisite course, having all four pieces of the formal objective is helpful. The audience, the action, the conditions of performance and the standard. In many if not most cases, we tend to narrow the objectives to the audience and the verb when, particularly in e-learning, we need all four to give students a clear idea of what is expected.