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It made me nostalgic and took me back to my college days when I was studying B.Ed. Our Profs explained us the taxonomies, components, and levels of objectives during that course. They also provided us with enough and more opportunities to practice writing instructional objectives. After all the concepts were taught, we were ready to create the Lesson Plans.
As expected, we had to write the learning objectives first and then flesh out the lesson plan with learning interactions and activities based on those objectives. So, here’s my little secret around it: I always decided the learning interactions and flow of the lesson first (coz that was the most interesting part) and then wrote the learning objectives.
Another secret 😉
I never changed! I still do the same for eLearning courses! Yes, I still create the objectives screen in the end, if it’s a mandate by the client to add one. My preferred way is to ditch the objectives screen and start the course with something worthwhile and interesting that can motivate learners to take the course. Most of the times, I love to start with a story they can relate to and situations they are familiar with. Here’s an example introduction screen:
When you start a course with a relevant story and make the learner in charge of the situation, the interest level to take the course increases. But you need to carefully craft the story so that it covers all the important objectives you want the learners to achieve. Yes, I agree with Cammy here as well that letting the learners know about the objectives is important. 🙂
Time for some reactions from you:
- Is this approach better than starting with those (boring) bullet points?
- I love to start my course with a story. What’s your take on it?
Do let me know by leaving a comment on this post…
It made me nostalgic and took me back to my college days when I was studying B.Ed. Our Profs explained us the taxonomies, components, and levels of objectives during that course. They also provided us with enough and more opportunities to practice writing instructional objectives. After all the concepts were taught, we were ready to create the Lesson Plans.
As expected, we had to write the learning objectives first and then flesh out the lesson plan with learning interactions and activities based on those objectives. So, here’s my little secret around it: I always decided the learning interactions and flow of the lesson first (coz that was the most interesting part) and then wrote the learning objectives.
Another secret 😉
I never changed! I still do the same for eLearning courses! Yes, I still create the objectives screen in the end, if it’s a mandate by the client to add one. My preferred way is to ditch the objectives screen and start the course with something worthwhile and interesting that can motivate learners to take the course. Most of the times, I love to start with a story they can relate to and situations they are familiar with. Here’s an example introduction screen:
When you start a course with a relevant story and make the learner in charge of the situation, the interest level to take the course increases. But you need to carefully craft the story so that it covers all the important objectives you want the learners to achieve. Yes, I agree with Cammy here as well that letting the learners know about the objectives is important. 🙂
Time for some reactions from you:
- Is this approach better than starting with those (boring) bullet points?
- I love to start my course with a story. What’s your take on it?
Do let me know by leaving a comment on this post…
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working backwards….works every time!
[…] Do not state the objectives at the very beginning. Let it be a natural part of the story. This sounds something similar to one of my previous blogs. […]
I can see at least two differing opinions in all of these threads and it seems the main reason is that some are talking about how learning objectives are used to guide the e-learning design process while others are disagreeing because they’re talking about how learning objectives are expressed to the course participant in the actual course content.
I don’t think anyone is actually saying that learning objectives should be abandoned as a design tool. I certainly find them invaluable for that. However, when it comes to giving the learner some kind of a heads up about what to expect in the content of a course or a course module, I would personally much rather break away from the standard (and very boring) bulleted list of statements that come straight out of the course design doc. At the very least, I’d prefer to phrase them as questions:
For example, instead of:
“By the end of this module you will be able to list five ways to improve safety.”
Try something like:
“Can you think of five ways to improve safety in the workplace, so that everyone can go home to their family after work?”
However, although making e-learning more interesting and engaging is every Instructional Designers fervent dream, the reality in much of my professional life has been that most of my best ideas for doing so get torpedoed by some manager or corporate underling with a peripheral idea about learning design who mandates that: “All training courses MUST begin with clear and concise statements of learning objectives.” Sigh….
+1 🙂
