Instructional Objectives -- How Some of them Work

Lunchtime webinosh with Will Thalheimer, PhD (president of Work-Learning Research, Inc. Help organizations to bridge the gap between research on learning and reality.)

Brown Bag Learning follows subscription learning approach:

• Repeats key concepts over time: Spacing
• Enables you to get reminders and deepen your understanding
• Enables you to remember over time

Learning News

Big topic this week -- Neon Elephant Award to Robert Brinkerhoff for developing case success method evaluation of learning and his new book.

Next event: Fri. Jan 23rd on Myths

Question of the Week

How has the economy affected your Learning Unit? (responses in parens below)

• Hit us Hard (18%)
• Hurt a Little (50%)
• Not much effect (32?)

Instructional Objectives

The Learning Landscape (how the learning experience goes):

1. Learning Intervention (Learner Learns)
2. Performance Situation (Learner Retrieves, Learner Applies)
3. Learning Outcome (Learner Fulfillment, Organization gets Learning Results)

Question: ID creates course on threshing and grinding, but only presents objections on threshing. What will happen?

Possible answers:

1. Info on T & G will be better recalled (T+,G+)
2. Info on T will be better recalled, while info on G will stay same (T+,G=)
3. Info on T will be better recalled, but info on G will be more poorly recalled (T+,G-)

#3 was most popular choice among respondents.

We'll come back to that in a minute. (Delayed feedback.)

Types of Instructional Objectives

There are many types of Instructional Objectives

Two audiences we should be aiming for. Instructional objectives designed to guide behavior: for the learner, for the developer.

Instructional Objectives for Learner:

• Table of contents objectives (these are the things we're going to teach you)
• Performance Objectives (this is what you'll do..)
• Motivation (why you should pay attention)
• Focusing Objectives (what you should pay attention to)

Instructional Objectives for Developers:

• Instr. Des Objectives (what we want learners to learn, behaviors for them to do)
• Evaluation Objective (these are the things we're going to measure)
• Situation (these are the list of situations)
• Organizational Objectives (the benefits that will come to the organization)

Don't want one objective to fulfill all purposes.

Today's focus: Focusing Objectives

A statement presented before learner encounters material to help guide learner attention to the most important aspects of the learning material.

Correct answer (to question above):

#3 If provide learning objective to learner, they will focus more on that material. Info on T will be better recalled, but info on G will be more poorly recalled (T+,G-)

Research shows: When info is targeted by learning objectives the learner recalls that info better, but they pay less attention to the other stuff (thus the reduction in G).

When presented with a learning objective -- it sits in the long term memory. So later when that info is targeted in the material, the long term memory is triggered.

Question:

Which focusing objective will product the best learning?

1. The physical appearance of three kinds of typefaces
2. The physical appearance of gothic types, italic type, roman type
3. Both will produce equal results

#2 is the best answer.

If objectives worded general, they have very little effect.

Focusing objectives should be VERY specific.

Do you use focusing objectives?

47% of us said "some of the time"

Which will be more effective at guiding learner atttention?

1. You will learn that perch navigate by using the sun?
2. Answer yes or no. Can perch navigate by using the sun?
3. Both will produce equal results

#2 is best response. The value of pre-questions. Research shows prequestions do work. Especially in prequestions that learner answers rather than reads.

Prequestions are about equal but slightly higher to a focusing objective.

What other ways can we guide learner attention to the most critical material?

[I've written on this topic before in My Objection to Learning Objectives. Be sure to read all of the great ideas put forth in the comments.]

Scenarios, pauses in material -- "pay attention to this", etc.

You don't need to use focusing questions and prequestions in every course. They are a tool in your toolbox. We all know that people mostly just click through a learning objective page of text bullets (they've been overused).

Sometimes it's good to surprise the learner.

Prequestions, especially scenario-based questions, are great for eLearning.

Lots of ways to guide a learner's attention: narration, white space, graphics, video, etc.

Focusing Objectives Summary:

• Improve learning by 5-40%
• Non-targeted info worse by 25%
• Must be specific
• Delivered close to learning (don't need to all be bunched up at the beginning of the workshop -- you can spread them out to when they will actually be learning that material)
• Pre-questions are good

Learning Myth of the Week

Myth = Learning Objectives Don't Work. They do. They sometimes don't work, because the learners aren't paying attention. (So how can you design your courses so that learners DO pay attention?)

Myth = Objectives must be used. No. There are other ways to guide attention.

Myth = Objectives should be used like a Table of Contents. No

Will's New Taxonomy for Learning Objectives

Will Thalheimer, along with many other illustrious eLearning professionals, made some great points in the comments of Writing Less Objectionable Learning Objections.

Be sure to check out Will's post from June of 2006: New Taxonomy for Learning Objectives:

Instructional professionals use learning objectives for different purposes—even for different audiences. Learning objectives are used to guide the attention of the learner toward critical learning messages. Learning objectives are used to tell the learner what's in the course. They are used by instructional designers to guide the design of the learning. They are used by evaluation designers to develop metrics and assessments.

Will talks about four, and possibly five, different types of objectives:

• Focusing Objectives
• Performance Objectives
• Instructional-Design Objectives
• Instructional-Evaluation Objectives
• Content-Outlining Objectives (Which is what many of us are used to producing in the form of text-bulleted lists of course objectives).
  

How does this jive with how you've been thinking about objectives?

Writing Less Objectionable Learning Objectives

My recent post on alternatives to listing out learning objectives generated a lot of interest and a good conversation. ( See My Objection to Learning Objectives.)

I attempt to summarize here, but feel free to go back to the original post and read all the comments:

• Clive Shepherd hates when learning objectives are the first thing you see. It's like the opening credits of a movie. Boring. When clients insist on the objectives list, Clive includes an opening scene to spice things up.

• Karl Kapp suggests starting off a course with a series of questions related to the objectives, or to start off with a scenario. [In the comments of this post, Karl clarifies: he's not suggesting pre-test questions, but rather a series of thought-provoking questions to get the learner to THINK about the content at hand].
  

• Jay Cross says it's "presumptuous and confining for developers to foist objectives on learners, for it disregards the learner's needs, prior learning, and context." He suggests a list of potential outcomes with check boxes, effectively allowing the learner to create his or her own objectives.

• Chris refers us to Will Thalheimer's “The Learning Benefit of Questions”, in which Will argues that introductory questions have a notable impact on learning. Chris suggests that a reasonable alternative to the “At the end of this class you will be able to” list is a series of questions. Chris is also a big fan of Michael Allen.

• Pete Blair always includes the objectives. "Personally, I don't like to hide things from learners and play guessing games, so I am an advocate of letting the learner know, up front, what they will be expected to do at the conclusion of the course, lesson, or whatever. If they choose to skip that part of the course, then that's OK by me, they must still meet the objective(s) before they complete the course."

Christy Tucker did a nice write up from the the opening presentation of the WebEx/eLearning Guild Online eLearning Summit. Michael Allen was one of three keynote speakers. He had this to say on objectives:

"...throw out the crutches we’ve used in the past, like starting every unit with objectives that make sense to designers. You can write objectives in a different way so they fit with a context of why you want to learn something. There are better ways to do some of the things we’ve been doing. You can just throw some of that out though. Think like a learner. Give them a challenge at the beginning so they experience what they have to learn instead of just telling them what they need to learn."

How do you try to think like a learner? Have you come up with some novel way to handle learning objections? Have you met resistance from your clients when you tried to do it differently?

Photo credit: I Learn By Going Where I Have To Go by Joe Shlabotnik

My Objection to Learning Objectives

After reading this post, you will be able to:

• Explain two of the reasons why Cammy Bean doesn't like learning objectives
• Explain your own view of learning objectives
  
• Develop an alternative approach to listing learning objectives in your next eLearning course

Introduction
I hate writing learning objectives. I see the value. I do. At least from the instructional designer's and the business's point of view. Learning objectives clarify exactly what it is you're trying to teach. But I find them painfully boring to read and to write.

Ray Sims has written a great summary on Writing Learning Objectives, with citations to some good resources, including Vicki Heath's post Learning Objectives: Writing Learning Outcomes So They Matter.

Vicki states as the first benefit of learning objectives: "Learners can focus more easily on what is important to their actual workplace performance."

Her statement is in keeping with traditional instructional design theory that says that learning objectives help learners organize their learning efforts. And yet one could argue that most learners don't even bother reading them.

As Michael Allen says in Michael Allen's Guide to e-Learning: "Learners think, 'I'm supposed to do my best to learn whatever is here, so I might as well spend all my time learning it rather than reading about learning it." (p. 159)

The objectives page is one that I always click NEXT to slide right on by.

How about you? If you have ever taken an eLearning course (and be honest -- have you really taken an eLearning course?), have you taken the time to read those objectives? Really?

Write Better Objectives
One approach, as Cathy Moore demonstrates so well, is to write better objectives. See her recent post: Makeover: Turn Objectives into Motivators.

Michael Allen thinks better-written objectives are a start, but wonders if any form of the "textual listing of objectives [is] really the best way to sell anyone on learning." (p. 161)


Break the Rules
Allen urges instructional designers to break the rules: "Don't list objectives."

Pretty radical, isn't it? I called this one out as one of the top things I learned about learning in 2007.

Instead, provide some meaningful and memorable experiences using interactivity, graphics, animation, and storytelling.

photo by bb_matt


Alternatives to Listing Objectives

Here are some of Michael Allen's alternatives to listing out boring learning objectives in text bullet form:

Put the Learner to Work (p. 161) Have the learner attempt a task. If they fail, they'll know what they are going to be able to do when they finish your program (hopefully, complete the task).

Use Drama (p. 165)
Create a scenario showing the risk of what could happen if the learner doesn't learn the content -- and the benefits that will happen when she does

Create a Game Quiz (p. 166)
Instead of a traditional, boring assessment, create a game-like quiz. Based on their performance, learners will see if they are beginners or advanced, and where their gaps in knowledge might lie. And they'll be able to see what kinds of tasks they should be able to do at the end of the course.

Check out Karl Kapp's Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning for some simple game ideas.

Have you experimented with alternatives to listing out learning objectives? Do you have any good stories? Have you had a client push back when you've tried to eliminate the learning objectives page?

Pretesting: Why bother?

Over at The Learning Circuits Blog, Clark Quinn is wondering about pre-tests.

I've always wondered about them myself and have only reluctantly included them in courses. They've always just seemed annoying to me. Well, I recently took Will Thalheimer's Original Learning Research Quiz which had me rethinking the whole point of prequestions/pretesting.

Will points out the validity of pretests and prequestions, arguing that

"prequestions function as learning objectives" guiding the user's "attention toward some aspects of the learning material and away from other
aspects of the learning material."

So if pretests/prequestions are a way to focus your user's attention on the important aspects of the content, then the big question here is, are you asking the right questions? Or are you just asking questions for the sake of asking a question -- because someone told you to include a pre-test?