Designing Learning Sunday # 5 – The Learning Objective

Designing Learning Sunday # 5 – The Learning Objective

Welcome back everyone to the Crossroad Learning blog series, Designing Learning Sunday. I’m Instructor Dave and I will be your tour guide in the world of Learning and Development. In this blog, we take an every-man's approach to instructional design and learning, and then break it down into bite-sized pieces so that everyone can be an instructional designer, no matter the business that you support. Last time, we talked about Choosing a Delivery Method and how to choose the most appropriate approach based on what you are trying to do. This week, we enter into our fifth entry in the Designing Learning Sunday blog, “The Learning Objective”.

If you happen to be new here, these are the links to the previous blog entries. DLS Blog 1 – Is This Training Or Coaching? DLS Blog 2 – Needs-Based Assessment?! DLS Blog 3 – The Design Document DLS Blog 4 – Choosing a Delivery Method

This week we will begin Designing Learning Sunday # 5 – The Learning Objective. Starting from the top, “Objectives”, come in all shapes and variety. There are course objectives, topical objectives, learning objectives, etc. Think of them as a funnel, going from the overall “what we are supposed to do, learn, or accomplish at the end of the learning” to a more specific “this is what we need to do to make this happen”. Or more broadly, our goal (learning outcome), and what we need to do to get there to support that goal (learning objective).

There are educational psychologists, educators, learning professionals, and very educated people who have studied learning objectives, and written papers about them. In their research, (look up Robert Mager), they have given us excellent guidance on where to start with our learning objective, and what they should contain. Wait a minute. Didn’t I just say that the learning objectives were like a goal? Yes, I did, but like any goal (personal, professional, sports, etc.,) there are guidelines for the goal. And, as all goals do, our learning objectives operate within a framework. The researchers we mentioned help us define what that goal should be and could be. I’ll explain this further.

In addition to the learning objective being the goal, it defines what the learner is expected to do or know at the end of the learning. The learning objective should identify these things;

Who is doing it? What are they supposed to be doing? How well, or under what conditions?

Or more simply

“Who is doing what, how well, and under what condition?”

With the learning objective in place, performance measurement can begin. The learning objective gives us a basic measurement point where we can say, “At the end of the training, the learner will be able to do or demonstrate this activity within a reasonable degree of success”. In turn, you can take this to your stakeholders and confirm that this is what is expected of the learners, and you can build your training material to support the learning objectives. Read that last line again.

Yes, the training material/learning material needs to be designed to support the learning objectives. There is not a good reason (in my experience) to not have your learning objectives designed, created, or discussed before creating your training material. Remember, the learning objectives are the goal of what your training is supposed to accomplish. For example, the learning objective I have for this blog series is, “Using the information and resources within the Designing Learning Sunday blog series, learners will be able to successfully design learning for their business unit.” That is my learning objective. Let’s make one that is closer to what we have been discussing for the last few weeks.

In our previous examples, we were asked to create Customer Service Soft Skills training, and the lesson we are going to work on is Greeting Customers. We want to train our customer support reps to greet each customer with a festive holiday greeting when they enter the shop. Let's create a learning objective to support this.

Following our formula of “(1) Who is (2) doing what, (3) how well, and (4) under what condition”, we can create our objective.

(1) “Who” (who is going to be participating in the learning) customer support reps (2) "Doing what” (what will they be doing) we want them to greet our customers with a festive holiday greeting (3) “How well” (we need to identify the expected level of proficiency) successfully, each time a customer enters the shop (4) “Under what condition” (what are the criteria and conditions) when customers walk into the shop

Let’s put it together.

For the sake of argument, we will say that everything in the learning objective is expected at the end of the training. So putting it together we have;

Customer support reps will be able to successfully greet each customer with a festive holiday greeting each time they enter the shop. or

Each time a customer enters the shop, customer support reps will be able to successfully greet them with a festive holiday greeting.

We have two variations here. Both contain the information needed for a learning objective, but one sounds better. Writing effective learning objectives can take patience and practice. Which do you like more?

While there is not a single, right-way, or only way to create learning objectives, there are wrong ways to write them. One of the areas where learning objectives fail is when they are poorly written and do not align with what the overall course is supposed to do, and when the learning material/training material, does not support the learning objectives.

Often, learning objectives and instructions are used as a replacement for one another. Don’t do that. It’s wrong and does a disservice to you and your learners. Not everyone writes learning objectives or includes them in their course design. Yet, I feel inclined to share in this blog what has been successful and effective for me.

Fortunately for us, some people dug deeper into the way that people learn and categorized the way people learn. This framework is called the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. (see Benjamin Bloom and Bloom's Taxonomy). Without going too deep into that rabbit hole, Bloom and his colleagues broke down the way people learned and categorized it. Because of their hard work we can apply specific descriptive terms to our learning objectives based on the type of skills to be learned.

Using what is found within Bloom’s Taxonomy can help us write better and more effective learning objectives that put us on the path to designing great learning.

Let’s recap;

Learning objectives are a goal. They are brief statements that describe what the learners are expected to learn by the end of the course. The full power of learning objectives is realized when the learning objectives are explicitly stated. Writing clear learning objectives are critical to designing, creating, and teaching a course.

Great learning objectives are not usually written in the first go. So, always review them to ensure that they support what you are trying to accomplish. As you start to plan the design you have for your learning, write learning objectives. Write them a couple of times, focusing on our formula Then, rewrite them until they are as specific as they can be. If you get stuck, try reading it aloud, and hear if it makes sense.

One of my many mentors over the years once told me that, “Learning objectives can always be re-written to reinforce learning.” Keep at it, it may not get easier, but they will get better.

Next time we will talk about Storyboarding and how it can help with our course design.

Reach out to us if you have any questions, or just want to chat.

Always be learning, - Instructor Dave

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