In this regard, I think the lead-in text, ‘This course will help you:’ is more appropriate than ‘This course is designed to enable the learner to:’

Firstly, the second lead-in text keeps the learner out of focus, which, I believe, is a cardinal sin in any type of teaching. Such indirectness can only lead the learners into believing that the teacher is not willing to address them directly. Maintaining such a distance with the learners can be disastrous, as this can only make the learner come under the impression that the teacher is not confident of and not responsible for the teach.

Moreover, the second lead-in text seems to be directed at the entity entitled with the responsibility of approving the e-learning product. This is simply not on, as it is the learners who are the users of the e-learning product. Whatever business interests the e-learning vendor and the buyer of the e-learning product may be having, it ultimately boils down to the teacher-student relationship—the instructional designer-subject matter expert, and the learner in the e-learning environment.

The first lead-in text, on the contrary, addresses the learners directly, catches their attention immediately and wins their confidence at the onset. It gives the learners the sense that they have to do things on their own. The e-learning product, which is replacing a conventional teacher, physically present before the learners or delivering the instruction by such media as telephone, instant messaging etc., can only provide the required assistance for achieving the objectives.

A simple and direct lead-in text can help learners come out of the sense of amazement created by the graphical and technical finesse of the product. Often, the visually pleasing look-n’-feel of the product can lead the learners, especially if they aren’t accustomed to or long cut-off from e-learning or any type of formal, organized teaching can lead the learners into being under the impression that the effort required on their part to learn a particular thing is reduced by the e-learning product. E-learning can only make teaching effective and uniformly reusable. The only reduction in effort on the learner’s part can come from increasing the efficiency of the teacher—a role taken over by the e-learning product in the e-learning domain.

So, e-learning is about helping learners, as distinct from enabling them, to do to such and such things. The learners are still all living beings, human beings to be particular, and none can really enable them to do to such and such things. The e-learning product is not enabling the learners to perform a particular function; rather, it’s helping them to enable themselves to perform the function—simply ‘helping’ them to perform the function—to avoid verbosity.

So, it’s learner first. That’s why it’s e-learning and not e-teaching. Just as the approach and the treatment should be consistent throughout the course, the supreme importance of the learner should also be maintained everywhere in the course—the lead-in text of the objective(s) being no exception.

I can’t argue with the value that objective can have in helping match your training to the performance setting — though that’s “can,” not “inevitably will.”

In the customer-problem scenario, I see “choosing an action” and “explaining your choice.” These are connected to a (possibly mythical) transformation of a dissatisfied customer to a satisfied one, something that may not always be possible.

And if in the real world that’s okay — if management is bright enough to recognize appropriate or acceptable choices, despite the lack of satisfaction — then that’s probably worth cranking into the training.

“Sometimes we can’t make the customer happy. Mr. Jawclench still wants the shop to waive all the labor charges for his car’s body work. You’ve (done A, B, and C), which is about as good as it gets. As VP of service, I thank you for staying calm. We’ll do the best we can for Mr. Jawclench, and if you treat everyone this way, we’ll have a lot more satisfied customers.”

Clearly, IDs need to use rigorously developed objectives. I push for ones that inspire activities based in the real world, whether these activities are inexpensive multiple-choice questions (choose the most appropriate email to send) or more expensive simulations (actually write an appropriate email).

The precise wording of the ID’s objective will vary slightly depending on the tool being used and the activities it supports. If the development tool restricts us to MC questions, we’ll say “When presented with inappropriate and appropriate wording for an X email, choose the appropriate wording” or something like that. If we can go with a simulation, the ID objective will be something more like “Write an appropriate email for….”

As you point out, the learners don’t care about these fine distinctions –they just want to know what the course will do for them. So I agree that your marketing-style approach is great, because it identifies what the learner will be able to *do* at the end of the course and presents it in a way that highlights what they care about.

Similarly, if we offer the learners a bulleted list of objectives, I think they should emphasize what the learner will be able to do in the real world. This means the wording might differ from the wording used by the ID when designing the material. The ID might say, “When presented with inappropriate and appropriate wording for an X email, choose the appropriate wording.” The goal as presented to the learner might say, “Write X emails with confidence.”

At the same time, when the ID is choosing objectives, I think it’s best for them to try to use objectives that as much as possible emulate what the learner will be doing in the real world. So when we’re designing the course, it can be helpful to think, “How would I describe this objective to the learner in a way that will make the learner care? Can I get close to that wording in my design? Can I develop an activity that will support such an objective?” and so forth.

But going from your example where the learner is asked to defend his decision to email or not, the objective will still be up to the “explain” level, (e.g. determine and explain ways at which to deal with dissatisfied customers) and not “turn a dissatisfied customer into a satisfied one” because the material itself is all about “choosing” the most applicable action and “explaining” one’s decision.

Maybe I’m just driving at clearly stating objectives and then embedding motivation in the material itself. Using the above example, I might show the objectives at the start of the module as part of a paper (or a blended solution, if you prefer) and then use advertisement-type slides/pages(?) in the introduction, example:

“What do you do when this happens to you…

… missent data to a customer.
…(other scenario)
…(other scenario)

…Learn all these and more with..

…(Name of the Module)!

or something like it.;p Anyway, I’m just a stickler for objectives because I do tons of professional training regulations/competency-based curricula for jobs, and I always am strict when assessing learning material with the proposed objectives.

Too often I see objectives like “define X” and “describe Y” given as examples of good behavioral objectives. People say these objectives are “behavioral” because they can be measured–did the learner correctly define X on the quiz? In that sense, they are better than objectives like “understand X.”

But “define” and similar objectives are really useful only if the learner’s job actually requires them to regularly “define X” (maybe they’re a reference librarian who’s asked about X all the time). Otherwise, I push for real-life application objectives like “use X” or “create Y”–the kind of behavior that Dad would be proud to see.

Depending on the desired performance and its conditions, you can still sharpen your design by making sure that the content and especially activities help people achieve the performance when they couldn’t, previously.

I think of what Cathy’s talking about as learner objectives. “You’ll adapt existing financial reports and create your own” might be good enough for people learning Excel.

To communicate clearly with your client (meaning, the managers of the learners) you probably need an agreement on what “adapt” and “create your own” mean — e.g., the client provides half a dozen templates that form the basis for plug-and-chug activity; the client provides examples of ad-hoc documents so you have suggested examples that the learners can pick and choose from when creating their own.

I’ve long been a proponent of the Heydad test as a way of making sure your objectives make sense to the learner. Just precede the objective itself with “Hey, Dad, watch me while I…”

“Hey, Dad, watch me while I create a style sheet so I can update my web pages easily”

(as opposed to “Hey, Dad, watch me while I understand principles of CSS”)

Thank U for sharing your ideas. Yeah, we can improve our courses using more context and examples. And, wish u a prosperous 2008! Hope we continue these healthy discussions in the coming year too.

-Anitha

For example, a typical approach is to use a compliance course to provide abstract information or orders (like “Be careful what information you include in an email because the email could be intercepted”). We then follow that with multiple-choice questions about that information (like “Our emails can be intercepted: true or false?”).

We could instead write a scenario in which a character includes client information in an email that gets intercepted and show what happens as a result. A quiz could present a different scenario in which the same possibility exists and ask the learner if the character should send the email, and why or why not.

This could be done with the usual text, stock photos, and multiple-choice questions that we use in strictly informational materials, so the production cost could remain the same, assuming the developers have access to a good collection of photos.

It might take slightly longer to write if the designer isn’t used to coming up with stories. If stakeholders are uncomfortable with the approach, they might need a little more time to discuss it and review drafts. So if there’s an additional cost, it’s usually at the design phase, and only if the people involved aren’t used to the approach yet.

Basically, a more application-based approach doesn’t have to be an expensive multimedia simulation. We could even do it with PowerPoint and rapid development tools. The main difference is in the instructional design.

Many organizations develop e-learning courses for compliance needs. In such situations, will a client be willing to convert a knowledge-based course into a application-based( read more expensive) course? What were your experiences in this regard?

Thanks,

Anitha