Learning Objectives
The purpose of learning objectives is to set learners’ expectations about what they should be able to do after doing the content and enable you to ensure that they are being covered within the microteach content.
Where possible they should be:
- Measurable (use verbs that are observable actions, more specific than just to ‘know’)
- Specific, clear and concise
- SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results focused, Time focused)
Bloom’s taxonomy was developed to provide educators with a common language for crafting learning objectives and assessing learning within a hierarchy of cognitive orders of learning (remember – understand – apply – analyse – evaluate – create). It is worth having a quick refresher on Bloom’s taxonomy to help you identify appropriate learning outcomes for your microteach. The microlearning you will be creating on this website will be mostly focused on the lower orders of learning – Remember/ Understand and perhaps some Application through some knowledge check questions and assessment.
It is also useful to have a reference of suitable verbs to use when crafting meaningful learning objectives to avoid overusing ‘remember’, ‘understand’ and ‘apply’. Using a variety of verbs to craft your learning objectives will also serve in helping you think more creatively about how to deliver the content and how to assess it.
For a downloadable reference for measurable verbs to use when crafting your learning objective click here.
Try to also be specific.
Here’s an example:
By the end of this microteach you will able to:
“Remember best practice tips on creating microlearning assets.”
This is not specific or measurable, it doesn’t use an alternative verb from the standard ‘remember’ which is quite vague and as a result will be hard to assess.
This is better…
By the end of this microteach you will able to:
“Recall 3-5 best practice tips on creating microlearning assets”
This uses ‘recall’ which is one of the verbs suggested for the ‘remember’ level in Bloom’s taxonomy and is active and observable (we can identify whether a learner can recall some information but it is harder to know if they remember something). It also specifies a number range and so can be tested in the assessment or through knowledge check questions.