When one is undertaking a journey, it is important to identify where they are going, how they will go and what will be the results at the end of the journey. This is the similar case when undertaking training and course designing. This paper will address the importance of training objectives in training and course design and also give examples of good and poor courses.
Training objectives will provide a guide for the learners to make a decision on the kind of training to undertake so as to fulfill their career goals. Training objectives provide a clear result that the learner will be able to achieve by the time that the course is complete and hence guide the learner to make the correct decision on the course to select (Zhou, 2017).
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Instructors usually measure the success rate of their training at the end of each course. It is through these measuring that the instructor will be able to establish the effectiveness of the training sessions. The instructor will also be evaluated based on the student learning objectives to gauge the instructors’ teaching skills (Longchamp, 2017). These can be reviewed and assessed to determine the teaching capabilities of the instructor.
During course design, strong and clear learning objectives are critical. Besides identifying whether the training was successful, it also acts as a guide for future training content. The training objectives will provide feedback from both the learners and the instructors on what elements of the training work and those elements that do not. This acts as a guide during the revision of training content so as to modify, improve or at times come up with a completely new training document so as to achieve the goal of the training (Silberman & Beich, 2015).
I consider an online advertisement by Thompson Rivers University for a course in Introduction to Research Methods as a good course. From the training objectives, we can clearly see that the intention of the course is to bring about some behavior change. The objectives indicate that learners are expected to carry out some activities after training. This can be seen through the use of words like understand, describe, identify and even critically analyze. For instance, learners are expected to analyze published research at the end of the course critically. This is an activity that will continue even beyond the training period. Each of the objectives also refers to what the learner will do and not the instructors or course designers. The objectives are also clear, achievable, realistic and doable. One of the objectives is to understand research terminology. When you analyze this objective, it is clear what is expected of the learner, it is realistic and the learner can be able to do this. These objectives can also be measured to establish training success or failure.
On the other hand, a course advertised by Alison Free Online Courses in Basic French Language Skills for Everyday Life is a poor course in my view. While the course objective does indicate some behavior change in the learner, it does not indicate what activities the learners should carry out beyond training. The learners are only expected to learn basic French grammar and vocabulary. While this objective is realistic and doable, it does not provide a clear picture. The objective is ambiguous and gives room for multiple interpretations on the part of the consumers. For instance, will the learners only be able to learn oral French or will it be written or will it be both. The learner is left to wonder on the nature of the course. The objective can also not be observed.
References
Longchamp, J.C. (2017), The effect of student learning objectives on teachers and teaching as part of the teacher evaluation process: A grounded theory study , University of Vermont
Silberman, M.L. & Beich, E. (2015), Active training: A handbook of techniques, designs, case examples and tips, John Wiley and Sons
Zhou, H. (2017/3/1), Why does writing good learning objectives matter , Retrieved from https://learninginnovation.duke.edu
Thompson Rivers University, Introduction to research methods, Retrieved from https://www.tru.ca
Alison Online Courses, Basic French language skills for everyday life-Revised 2017, Retrieved from https://alison.com
