No one likes to read learning objectives. Okay, this might be too extreme a statement. Let me rephrase to make it sound more academically correct: no one, other than instructional designers, academic creditors, faculty/syllabus-writers, or students who are bored to tears, likes to read learning objectives—unless they are short, punchy, and, hence, super retainable!
As an instructional-design professional, I fit into the category of learning-objectives reviewers. I have a tendency to browse through the objectives portion of various documents: course syllabi, training brochures, webinar announcements, and even activity notices from my kids’ school. I look at them not to learn purpose of the events but rather to catch “violators” of our learning-objective rules: “to understand”… vague word; “to improve” … but how; “to be able to” … under what condition!
The latest “violator” that I encountered was Dr. David Allbritton, from DePaul’s psychology department. A few weeks ago, he gave a presentation at an online-learning seminar, where he shared the learning objectives of his online psychology course, and it looked like this:
- Think like a scientist
- Know stuff
- Figure stuff out
- Feel connected
- Find it relevant
- Don’t cheat
Maybe this was just an abbreviated list of objectives for the sake of a presentation (with the audience being psychology amateurs), but wow, talk about violations worthy of ticketing and fines! My need for a rewrite became so compelling that within a minute, new objectives showed up in my mind:
Think like a scientist | Develop and apply critical thinking skills for decision making and problem solving in the subject area |
Know stuff | Demonstrate knowledge of the subject matter |
Figure stuff out | Develop problem-solving skills in the subject area |
Feel connected | Develop an interactive learning community among faculty and students |
Find it relevant | Apply knowledge and skills obtained from the course to problem-solving in the real world |
Don’t cheat | Refrain from any behaviors of cheating and/or plagiarism |
Now tell me which one you like, mine or his? Or, to phrase it in a different way, which one is easier to comprehend and to remember?
As an audience of a presentation, I must say that I like Dr. Allbritton’s objectives, which grabbed my attention right away with his “stuff.” And hey, isn’t “gain attention” the very first step of Gagne’s “Nine Events of Instruction”? Okay, his second one is “inform learners of objectives”, but if your handout, syllabus, or presentation doesn’t allow you the space or time to “holler,” wouldn’t it be nice to use your objectives as an attention grabber? If the magazines are doing it (e.g. “Lose 10 Pound in a Day,” a suspicious but nevertheless clear and straightforward objective) and the book publishers are doing it (e.g. How to Cook Everything, an ambitious objective embedded even in the title itself), why can’t an academic learning guide, such as a syllabus, be made as easy to grasp as they are? I am not talking about an effort to commercialize or “sexy up” our academic lingo for the sake of sensationalism. Because often, it doesn’t need that. Being straightforward is all it takes to win the bid. Simple expressions, such as to know, to apply, to become, to evaluate, and to change tells students exactly what to expect from the course, from the fundamental or theoretical (to know) to the practical or methodological (to apply) to the ideological or believed (to become or to think like).
Having gained my attention and that of the rest of the audience, Dr. Allbritton was able to further explain the strategies he used to ensure the achievement of each target in the same simple and direct way. As someone who’s used to seeing and giving presentations in multislide mode, I found the following one-page handout of his demonstrated, in a clean and clear fashion, a great way of matching instructional strategies with learning objectives:
Objective | Strategy | Implementation |
Think like a scientist | Emphasize use of evidence to make decisions and support ideas | In content of lectures, discussions, and group projects |
Know stuff | Give ’em content | PowerPoint lectures |
Test ’em | Weekly Bb quiz on textbook | |
Figure stuff out | Make ’em do stuff | Discussion questions;Group projects |
Feel connected | Make them feel they are interacting with real people | Introductions assignment;Video intro lecture by instructor;
Voice-overs in PPT lectures; Discussions and projects with small groups |
Find it relevant | Make them apply it | Discussion questions;Final project in which they apply material from course |
Don’t cheat | Lots of low stakes assignments; no high-stakes tests; | Weekly quizzes;Lots of small assignments; |
No “purchasable” term papers | Final paper requires application rather than just summaries |
As an instructional designer and professor, I felt you’re 100% correct. Any educator would know that those learning objectives aren’t suitable for any kind of course.
I believe the learning objectives are critical to a course for both the instructional designer, instructor and student. Each party needs those objectives to do and understand their role in the educating process.