
Educating Citizens versus Sheep, Part 7: Learning Objectives
Part 6 of this series noted the Scenario-Based Learning (SBL) was the driver for the serious game’s car. If that is the case, Learning Objectives (LO) are the roadmap the driver uses to navigate. The figure shows how we effectively formulate LOs and get them into the scenario. The scenario must then be written to execute these LOs with the designated levels of complexity, cognitive load, and information.
On the surface, LO development is simple. But if we want meaningful and useful LO, particularly when they are tied into a comprehensive education system, LO development takes more time and care. An effective LO goes far beyond something like the LOs found at homeschoolcirriculum.com
Science Objectives for 6th Grade Curriculum:
- Conduct scientific investigations
- Explore plant life and parts of plants
- Basic understanding of the solar system (planets, moon, etc.)
- Explore concepts of energy and motion
This is not to single this site out as “bad”. It is fairly typical of many approaches to LO in education. I have used this as it is potentially national in scope vice a single school district. The biggest issue is there is no way to assess these topic areas. And that is what they are: topic areas or perhaps focus areas. They are not LOs.
The Army has a format that helps to develop effective LOs. They use the three elements of task, condition, and standards. Task is what needs to be done. Conditions are the conditions under which the task must be performed. Standards is how the task execution is assessed. Now “task” is drawn from proven lists of individual and collective tasks that support the unit’s assigned mission. On the surface that does not seem to translate well into an education versus a training enterprise. While that may be true in the absolute, I suspect that the concept does translate.
While the Army has an exhaustive library of tasks that are cross-walked to specific mission requirements the education institution does not. Each organization seems to have its own views and agendas, that may or may not reflect the needs of stakeholders, the two most important are the Republic itself and employers.
On the surface, the Department of Education (ED) seems to be positioned to develop the “task” list for education. However, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may provide a cautionary tale. DHS tried to take a page our the military’s handbook and developed a set of scenarios and tasks. However, given the US’s federal structure, it could not mandate this approach to the states. I suspect that this approach still languishes with poor implementation. ED, based on its experiences with No Child Left Behind and other programs, could well have even less success.
That leaves citizen groups and employers—the two primary stakeholders—to push for reform and effective LOs that develop effective learning programs that support citizenship development and competitiveness in a complex and rapidly changing global environment. Current history shows the education industry will not do this itself. This post provides some concepts and ideas to support these grass roots efforts.
So let us look at the specific area in the model that develops LOs.
There are three key components:
- An action verb, in this case pulled from Bloom’s Taxonomy.
- Context and conditions. The conditions should specify the intrinsic, extraneous/exogenous, and germane cognitive loads and the degree of complexity. Note the action verbs also direct complexity and a conditional complexity statement should be congruent to the action verb. The context and conditions can change a simple remember-based 3rd grade LO to a far more complex evaluate high school LO on the same general focus area.
- Measurement and evaluation criteria that specify the standards students must achieve and how the standards are assessed.
As the graphic indicates, the LO should be achievable but cause the student to stretch to achieve it. This is where the germane component of cognitive load comes into TO and scenario design. The stretch is where the learning takes place. 3rd grade TOs have low extraneous cognitive load and the intrinsic cognitive load is straightforward and easy to discern. High school and college TOs should contain high aspects of extraneous cognitive load to force the students to work to understand the intrinsic cognitive load aspects and to generate germane cognitive loads.
An example 6th grade LO could be:
Assess a solar system to determine what planet or planets may be fit for human habitation and select a planet and landing zone. Students will experience moderate extraneous cognitive load through large reports with data that may or may not be pertinent to the assessment and must work in teams with each student assigned a specialty area. Student teams must select an optimal, sustainable planet/landing area with low threats, and relevant resources and deliver their findings in a decision briefing to the expedition leadership (teacher and student mentors). The selected area should have a 90% chance of success.
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