The other day I was going through some eLearning blog posts and stumbled onto a not so old blog post by Cammy Bean. It was about Learning Objectives and her objections to it! 🙂
It made me nostalgic and took me back to my college days when I was studying B.Ed. Our Profs explained us the taxonomies, components, and levels of objectives during that course. They also provided us with enough and more opportunities to practice writing instructional objectives. After all the concepts were taught, we were ready to create the Lesson Plans.
As expected, we had to write the learning objectives first and then flesh out the lesson plan with learning interactions and activities based on those objectives. So, here’s my little secret around it:
I always decided the learning interactions and flow of the lesson first (coz that was the most interesting part) and then wrote the learning objectives.
Another secret 😉
I never changed! I still do the same for eLearning courses! Yes, I still create the objectives screen in the end, if it’s a mandate by the client to add one. My preferred way is to ditch the objectives screen and start the course with something worthwhile and interesting that can motivate learners to take the course. Most of the times, I love to start with a story they can relate to and situations they are familiar with. Here’s an example introduction screen:
When you start a course with a relevant story and make the learner in charge of the situation, the interest level to take the course increases. But you need to carefully craft the story so that it covers all the important objectives you want the learners to achieve. Yes, I agree with Cammy here as well that letting the learners know about the objectives is important. 🙂
Time for some reactions from you:
- Is this approach better than starting with those (boring) bullet points?
- I love to start my course with a story. What’s your take on it?
Do let me know by leaving a comment on this post…
