Week 6 Lecture on Writing Learning Objectives

This is the week we apply what was taught the past weeks to write learning objectives. The output from the Needs Assessment Models are goals. Basically, goals are broad statements of learning objectives. After going through the 3 Models, the educator needs to pen down specific behavioural/learning/performance objectives so that he/she knows what skills are required to perform the task and thus need to be taught.

Before we begin to write learning objectives, we first need to understand about 'Fuzzies' so that we don't end up writing fuzzy learning objectives. Learning objectives should only include performance and not abstractions. Here is my summary of how to judge whether the statement written is a performance:

1. 
   
   There is a single behaviour or class of behaviours i.e. something that you can DO to indicate the presence of the performance (NOTE: Covert performance is also counted because another person can directly infer the nature of what you just did. An example is selection. Although it is not visible because the process of selection occurs in your mind, you could point to what you selected and another person would be able to know you've made a selection.)


2. 
   
   That particular behaviour or class of behaviours have to be generally agreeable by a reasonable person i.e. if there is room for debate over the behaviour indicative of the performance, then it is considered a Fuzzy.


3. 
   
   Sometimes, you get statements like: "Says favourable things about others." and you might dismiss it as a Fuzzy because 'favourable' might appear fuzzy. But in this case, the statement is actually considered a performance because of the word 'say'. You can tell if someone is 'saying' something so it is considered a performance. "Favourable things" is indeed ambiguous but it is a matter of a criterion for acceptable performance and does not negate the fact that 'say' is indeed a performance (this is according to the readings).

Next, let's talk about the second reading on Task Analysis. Basically, a Job is a collection of Tasks, which is a series of Steps. When writing the Task Analysis, we should use a flowchart of rectangles and diamonds instead of a list. The rationale for doing so is that there will be steps in the list that require decisions and "it is somewhat awkward to show in a list just how the actions resulting from those decisions should be handled." Using a flowchart is better at dealing with the decision points i.e. the diamonds and to depict to the learner/employee the alternatives that he/she can take and what to do subsequently.

The procedure for Task Analysis is straightforward so I have nothing I would like to add on. I understand some of my coursemates have raised the question of "Why do we need to cross out the duplicates when we list the skills required to perform a step?". This is so that we don't have to teach the skill twice since "it makes no sense to teach the same skill once it's learned."

Moving on to the Curricular Map, the important things to note are that the performance objective right at the top is the terminal objective and the ones below it are the enabling objectives i.e. those that are pre-requisite and lead to the attaining of the terminal objective. If a horizontal line is drawn across anywhere in the curricular map, it means that those objectives below the line are assumed to be prior knowledge and so don't have to be taught. One last point to note is that in writing learning objectives, we should follow the A-B-C-D format: Audience (the learners), Behaviour (what the learners are supposed to DO), Condition (a scenario or context) and Degree (measurement). While the first 3 are essential, Degree can be added only where applicable.

To end off, I would like to share that after this week's lecture, I hope to be able to look at the learning objectives of NUS modules and see if they follow the A-B-C-D format. In fact, I shall go have a look at the NM3204 learning objectives on IVLE now! Till next time....... =:o)

Week 5 Lecture on Needs Assessment

This week, we learnt about Needs Assessment. How does Needs Assessment fit into the overall picture? The chapter summary at the end of the reading provided me with a macro-perspective on things.

First, we need to understand that Instructional Analysis or "front-end analysis" involves analyzing 3 components, namely:

i) instructional context (learning environment); ii) prospective learner; and

iii) learning task

This week's lecture zooms in on the first component: Instructional Context. There are two steps to analyzing Instructional Context. Step 1 is to conduct Needs Assessment and Step 2 is to draw up a description of the Learning Environment.

The purpose of a Needs Assessment is to determine whether there is actually a need for new instruction to be developed. There are 2 scenarios when designing new instruction would be considered a waste of time and resources:

1. Developing new instructional materials for topics that students are already learning well with existing cost-effective instruction.
2. When there is no compelling reason for a student to learn a particular skill or knowledge. This occurs when there is no subsequent learning goal or future job task that require the acquisition of that skill or knowledge

Needs Assessment and evaluation plans should be constructed simultaneously. There are 3 conditions which calls for Needs assessment and there are 3 models which work best under each condition:

1. Condition A: There is a problem. Use the Problem Model.
2. Condition B: There is something new that learners need to learn e.g. when there are changes or innovations in the educational system or organization and new learning goals should be added to the curriculum to accomodate those changes or innovations. Use the Innovations Model.
3. Condition C: No apparent problem but organization would like to evaluate learning/training programme to check that goals and reality are congruent. Use Discrepancy Model.

The steps for each Model are provided in the reading so I shall not list them down here. One point that I would like to highlight is that the Innovations Model may lead existing goals to be reexamined through the Discrepancy Model. The reason why I would like to highlight this is because when attempting the self-assessment, I did not tick the above statement because I viewed the 3 Models in isolation of each other and totally forgot about the arrow that linked the Innovations Model in the ANALYSIS portion of the circle to the Discrepancy Model in the EVALUATION portion of the circle (refer to diagram above).

While on the topic of evaluation, I would like to express that I feel the value of the Discrepancy Model is in its evaluative quality. In step 2 of the Discrepancy Model, "Determine how well the identified goals are already being achieved', there is one important question that is raised about whether existing instruction is being delivered efficiently.

A particular statement made in that paragraph stimulated my thinking: "There are occasions... when learning goals are being reached... but only with a Herculean effort on the part of teachers/trainers and/or learners."

At this point, I realized that effective instruction should not only emphasize on minimizing the effort put in by teachers to teach, but it should also minimize the effort that learners need to put in to learn.

I recall the times in my J.C and secondary school when I got really lousy teachers in a sense that they fared poorly on instruction and the poor students had to put in extra effort to re-read the lecture notes and textbooks in order to understand what the teacher was trying to say.

I suppose this is one of the reasons why Needs Assessment is important. It helps evaluate whether instructional delivery is efficient so that BOTH teachers and students do not need to exert excessive effort to achieve the learning goals - just what is sufficient to attain them.

Extrapolating it into the NUS context: perhaps if ALL the courses taught had efficient delivery in a sense that lecturers mastered the technique to effectively deliver content only once and the student would be able to grasp the concept, then we would have more time to pursue our other interests in life than to spend our academic career mugging only. Haha......

This was just a thought that struck me spontaneously but it got me to appreciate the value of the evaluative aspect of Needs Assessment. Perhaps if I do become a trainer or teacher one day, I will remember what I said and try to develop a way to deliver content only once and my participants/students would immediately be able to grasp the concept. *imagine.....*

Week 4 Lecture on Learning Design

From what I absorbed from the lecture and readings, I think the purpose of this week's lecture is to let us appreciate the value of
i) Learning Design and ii) having a standard framework with which educators can use to represent their learning designs.

Since it is firstly very important to understand the benefits of Learning Design, I drew up a Figure which represents the value of designing for learning (refer to Figure 1 on the left).

Basically, educators use the resulting Learning Design (after much thought and planning) to create the Learning Experience that learners need, to achieve the planned Learning Outcomes.

A good Learning Design should take into consideration the following:
i) learners' prior knowlegdge, motivation and expectations to build upon
ii) learning context e.g. where the learning is taking place, preferred pedagogical approach, etc
iii) available instituitional software and e-tools

Obviously, there are many other aspects to be factored into the construction of the learning design but the above 3 are what I feel are the main important considerations. They are simple to understand yet essential to be a starting point in the planning of a learning design.

So, since there are so many considerations in a learning design, obviously different educators in different educational institutes that subscribe to different pedagogical approaches will come up with many different learning designs right? How then do we compare and evaluate the various learning designs?

Thank God (or rather, thank Herrington) for his Learning Design Framework. Herrington's Learning Design Sequence or framework, which I prefer to call it, provides a standardized way of representing the learning design that educators all over the world come up with. This is how the framework is implemented:

Rectangles - represent learning activities i.e. what learners are required to do or produce
Triangles - represent learning resources e.g. information sources and learning materials
Circles - represent learning supports which provide feedback to learners; communication is a critical aspect of learning supports

The direction in which the arrow is drawn from a rectangle to a triangle bears certain meanings. An arrow from a triangle to the rectangle implies that the learning resource is there as an input to the learning activity. An arrow from a rectangle to the triangle implies that a learning resource is produced from that learning activity.

A learning design can usually be split into the left, center and middle column. Triangles are placed on the left, rectangles in the center and circles are at the right column.

Ok, having completed the discussion of the 2 main learning objectives which I picked out, I would like to comment on the learning design focus/learning activity techniques by Oliver and Tegiar respectively. You can refer to pg. 68 of Oliver reading and pg. 96 of Tegiar reading to roughly know what I'm referring to.

The learning design focus (rule-based, incident-based, strategy-based and role-based) offered by Oliver is based on the Jonassen (2000) taxonomy of problems. I find the classification that Oliver uses confusing and contradictory to Jonassen's taxonomy.

For example, under rule-based designs, Oliver quotes an example of a CD-ROM tool that assists medical students with clinical communication to identify patients' problems. Rule-based designs should be based more on algorithmic problems rather than case method problems (e.g. clinical cases as stated in the Week 2 lecture notes)

Another point that Oliver makes is that role-based design is higher in complexity than strategy-based design. I disagree on this point becuase I feel strategy-based design should rank as the highest in complexity. My opinion is also backed up in Jonassen's taxonomy which ranks issue-based problems as the most complex and should utilize the strategy-based design (because according to Oliver, it is for complex, ill-defined tasks with decision-making).

On the otherhand, Tegiar's classification of learning activity techniques - assimilative information handling, adaptive, communicative, productive and experiential - is a more accurate and clear-cut categorization that is easier to follow and agree on.

So this is my input for Week 4. Looking forward to being able to apply the learning design in tutorials and seeing how it relates to future topics on E-learning!