What are learning objectives?

When designing your e-Learning training, it is vital that you include learning objectives which should be designed and worded to the extent that others can detect if the objective has been achieved or not.

From reading the learning objectives you should be able to answer the question: “What will the learner be able to do as a result of being exposed to the content, pedagogy [teaching and learning] and activities in this e-Learning training resource."

As much as possible, learning objectives should also be written to be SMART (an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Acceptable to you, Realistic to achieve and Time-bound with a deadline).

Also, each piece of e-Learning training should contain learning objectives which link in with an accepted and established learning theory such as Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Bloom’s Taxonomy defines learning in terms of knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. As well as providing a basic sequential model for dealing with topics in the curriculum, it also suggests a way of categorising levels of learning, in terms of the expected ceiling for a given programme. For example training for technicians may cover knowledge, comprehension and application, but not concern itself with analysis and above, whereas full professional training may be expected to include this and synthesis and evaluation as well.

Why is this important in the development of e-Learning materials?

It is just as important that e-Learning is designed and delivered in the same pedagogically sound way as any face-to-face training. All trainers should have clear learning objectives for their training sessions, and this also applies to the design and delivery of e-Learning.

Well-written learning objectives should shape the content, pedagogy and activities included in the e-Learning training package.

Other organisations have adopted e-Learning guidelines and consideration should be given to adopting and adapting these; for example the National Learning Network (NLN) guidelines which are based on Robert Gagné's instructional design model and which include reference to the fact that continued development of e-Learning materials needs to be set against agreed standards that promote development and protect investment. These are:

• gaining attention (reception)
• informing learners of the objective (expectancy)
• stimulating recall of prior learning (retrieval)
• presenting the stimulus (selective perception)
• providing learning guidance (semantic encoding)
• eliciting performance (responding)
• providing feedback (reinforcement)
• assessing performance (retrieval)
• enhancing retention and transfer (generalisation).

Related Resources

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  Teaching and Learning Online
  

  A link to Google books that describes, and has excerpts for, a book edited by John Stephenson that gives comprehensive examples of how to design e-Learning.

  http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KUD5rnh7QnwC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&
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  Learning objectives
  

  A simple overview of how to write learning objectives.

  http://apha.confex.com/apha/learningobjectives.htm
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  Bloom's Taxonomy
  

  Information about Bloom's Taxonomy of learning objectives on the learning and teachning web site. Offers simple introduction and some links.

  http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/bloomtax.htm
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  Robert Gagne Instructional Design Model
  

  Information about the Robert Gagne Instructional Design Model.

  http://www.nwlink.com/~Donclark/hrd/learning/gagne.gif