Learning objectives are something I work with in my professional setting all the time. All of my organization's continuing medical education activities must have objectives in order for us to offer credits to physicians and nurses.
And it is a huge pain in the neck for us! Our clinical writers who give the background information on the topic for the activity we're planning usually provide draft objectives. But they are typically not behavioral at all. The almost always start with "Understand...". If we were just concerned about simple accreditation of activities, it would not be a problem. But since every activity we do is funded by outside grants that I am responsible for, and the general CME environment is trying to change performance, not knowledge, these knowledge-based objectives are not appropriate. We always have to rewrite them but of course since we're not clinicians ourselves, we naturally have to get them reviewed again.
This is just one example, but I'd be curious about how many people actually are in a position to write their own program's learning objectives.
Can you do this or is it up to the content experts? Or is it, as in my organization, a combination of the two?
Dierdre,
ReplyDeleteI just got done writing about how hard objectives are to write in my own blog! It's takes practice to learn how to write them. Most are so generic: "The student will be able to..."
and they don't really say anything specific.
Sherry--thanks for your comment. I'm glad I am not the only one who struggles with objectives. We work on them a great deal, and every once in a while I think we actually get to a behavioral one that can be measured. But that's more the exception than the rule! I am looking forward to discussion on this.
ReplyDeleteLike your firm, Dierdre, mine is a combination. However, we almost never measure the success of the objectives. (Spaghetti/wall, remember?) - Kendall
ReplyDeleteDierdre, Maybe you should write a grant proposal so that clinical writers can have a professional development program on writing objectives!! I'm only half joking. :) -JD
ReplyDeleteKendall, the need for measurement is the one thing I have "in my corner" when struggling with objectives. More and more of our funders are requiring reporting back on the effectiveness of our educational activities (seems reasonable to request!), so I can always make them the bad guys and say that since we need to measure for our grants, then we better make sure the objectives are as measure-ABLE as possible.
ReplyDeleteJD--I can write a grant proposal for anything! :)
ReplyDeleteDierdre,
ReplyDeleteGlad you hear you're being held accountable for effectiveness of educational activities and that you're writing measureable learning objectives/applying them. TERRIFIC! I encourage you to find ways to model for and mentor others, in an effort to improve the world (whether education or training contexts)of student learning processes and outcomes.
I sometimes refer to learning objectives as the "heart" (or hub around which the wheel revolves) of the instructional systems development process.
Linda