What Would You Do?
This is a call to everyone that has ever designed, taught, or participated in a training course. I would like your advice on a design problem I ran into as an instructional designer.
Scenario
You have a full day workshop and a half day workshop. They both have the same content and use discussion and questioning learning approaches. There is one difference between them; the longer course has small group and individual activities that help the group apply the content to the real world. The shorter class still has interaction between the instructor and group, and between participants, just no application activities.
The $64k Question
Since all the content and course goals are the same, is it correct for both workshops to have the same learning objectives?
I can really use your feedback!
posted by Mark at 8:53 AM
5 Comments:
The Course Learning Objectives and Terminal Objectives could probably be the same for both, if both types of presentation are intended to help learners acquire the same overarching skills and knowledge--in other words, if the high-level learning outcomes are intended to be identical. The Topic Learning Objectives and the Enabling Objectives would probably need to be different, though, since different behaviors are being cultivated, different learning conditions are being presented in support of the larger objectives, and different topics (probably more topics) are being offered in support of the larger objectives.
Well, whether or not it's correct depends on the objective level - i.e. level 1 (knowledge) vs. level 3 (application). Also, what is the desired performance? Your course must have a mechanism in place for measuring the desired performance, regardless of the fact that it's a 1/2 or full day workshop. (Disclaimer: My original comment was entirely different, but I lost it becuase I didn't have a blogger ID!)
I would say there would obviously be some overlap with learning objectives but the courses would be differentiated by additional learning objectives that reflect the application learning-level for the longer course and comprehension learning-level for the shorter.
I don't speak the language of education, but here's a layman's answer.
The $64K question (check is in mail) was: "Since all the content and course goals are the same, is it correct for both workshops to have the same learning objectives?"
Answer: Absolutely not. By allowing participants to apply what they've learned, the all-day workshop should include much more robust testing, and you would hope validation, of the workshop's educational goals.
Thank you Terry, Kiris, Robert, and Nancy! I understand your points. It still seems a sticky wicket to me, though. Consider some psychomotor oriented content. Our objective is for the learner to be able to operate a manual stick and clutch car. Able to work the clutch and shift in unison without grinding the gears might be a good enabling objective. Driving the car down the road smoothly, and up to 50 mph, is a good terminal objective. Relating this to the short versus long class scenario seems analogous to shifting/driving.
Skip to something more cognitive. I'll stay simple (because I'm simple minded). Objective: You will be able to add two one-digit numbers together and correctly give their sum. So you teach someone how to add 2 plus 2; you might show and tell them about sets of 2, combine the sets, and have them count and report the result. Maybe you repeat this a bunch of times in class. For practice, you give them a sheet of such problems for homework.
Now we teach another learner the same way, but this person doesn't have any homework. They both have to pass a test. Obviously, the learner who practiced should have a better chance of passing (assuming the test is a good one; now it's adding 2+3).
In this example, I don't see a difference in the terminal objective. If I was more specific and had an objective of being able to complete 10 problems with x% errors, I still see no difference (use same objectives for both versions). If I keep the "be able to" format, the objective would still be able to add two one-digit numbers. If we make the objective more specific, say add a list of 10 numbers, depending on the learning context, we may be getting too close to designing an exercise rather than an objective.
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