WRITING THE LEARNING OUTCOMES | THE BLOOM’S TAXONOMY

 WRITING THE LEARNING OUTCOMES 

While Objectives are broad (fuzzy) statements of intent; outcomes are measurable statements of intent.

Why Write Learning Outcomes? Five valid reasons:

1. Outcomes give you a clear direction for training activities. As a trainer, you know where you are going and how will you reach there. Your time on designing a training programme is properly utilized.

2. Outcomes give direction to other co-trainers who focus on the same direction.

Consequently, they bring about uniformity in the training programme.

3. Learning outcomes also motivate trainees to grow as they clearly see WIIFM (what’s in it for me) that keeps them interested, involved and motivated.

4. Outcomes serve as a yardstick and standards to evaluate training. At the end of the programme, participants give you their feedback on the character of the training:

how many of learning objectives have been achieved met or exceeded expectations? This kind of feedback reflects the professionalism of your training, and provides trainees with input which they can use to further enhance their development.

5. Outcomes also help sell the training programme to the management as well as trainees who would like to see the payoff for what they do. Outcomes show them the WIIFM for the training time and the money they will invest.

HOW TO WRITE LEARNING OUTCOMES:

Developing good learning outcomes is a process as described below: Identify the tasks that people must perform in order to carry out their jobs. Once you have identified the tasks, analyze each task to determine how a competent person performs that task. Answer these questions: While performing the task, what steps does that person follow? What decisions does that person make? From there, identify the skills necessary to perform the task. With that information in hand, write the learning outcomes. Determine prerequisite relationships among the learning outcomes. Does one skill need to be mastered before another? Once this process is complete, you can develop and organize the instruction that enables students to master learning outcomes.

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS:

Learning objectives must always contain these four essential factors:

1. An ACTION to be performed by the trainee

For you to know that a learning objective has been achieved, you should see or hear something which shows that trainees are now able to do something which they could do not perform before training. For this to happen, trainees must perform an action that allows them to demonstrate what they have learnt in the training.

2. CONDITIONS under which the trainee is to perform an action

- Will it be in the classroom or in the field? - From memory or with an open book?

- With or without working tools and visual aids?

3. CRITERIA for achievement of learning objectives

This identifies how well trainees should perform to be successful.

- Do they have to get all the answers correct, or will 85% be OK?

- Must the action be performed in 5 or 10minutes?

- What is the performance standard, and to what extent trainees should meet this standard?

4. TIMING: Learning objectives must be time-bound

- By when the trainees will have achieved the learning objective?

THE BLOOM’S TAXONOMY
(TYPES OF LEARNING OUTCOMES):

Bloom's Taxonomy was designed in since 1956 and since then, has provided a basis for ideas which have been used (and developed) around the world by academics, educators, teachers and trainers, for the preparation of learning material.

Bloom believed that education should focus on 'mastery' of subjects and the promotion of higher forms of thinking, rather than a utilitarian approach to simply transferring facts. Bloom demonstrated decades ago that most teaching tended to be focused on fact-transfer and information recall - the lowest level of training - rather than true meaningful personal development, and this remains a central challenge for educators and trainers in modern times. Much corporate training is also limited to non-participative, unfeeling knowledge-transfer, which is reason alone to consider the breadth and depth approach exemplified in Bloom's model.

Bloom's Taxonomy underpins the classical 'Knowledge, Attitude, Skills' structure of learning method and evaluation. The Bloom's model is in three parts, or 'overlapping domains'.

Logically, every training address one or more of these areas and learning objectives should be designed to meet needs in any of these 3 categories:

- Cognitive domain (intellectual capability, i.e., knowledge, or 'think')

- Affective domain (feelings, emotions and behavior, i.e., attitude, or 'feel')

- Psychomotor domain (manual and physical skills, i.e., skills, or 'do')

LEVELS OF OBJECTIVES AS HIGHIGHTED BY BLOOM:

Within each Domain there are several levels you may wish to specify in your objectives writing. This will depend upon the extent of detail that is required in the curriculum and what you know about the learning style and readiness of the students.

In each Domain, Bloom identified several levels, each with a list of suitable verbs for describing that level in written objectives. The following table describes the cognitive domain, and levels are arranged from the least complex levels of thinking to the most complex levels of thinking.

Some objectives should deal with facts, some with concepts and some with the application of the information. Assuming that the objectives are well written, this will also lead to assessment questions and methods that address a variety of cognitive levels.

1- THE COGNITIVE DOMAIN:

The cognitive domain (Bloom, 1956) involves knowledge and the development of intellectual skills.

• This includes the recall or recognition of specific facts, procedural patterns, and concepts that serve in the development of intellectual abilities and skills.

• There are six major categories, which are listed in order below, starting from the simplest behavior to the most complex.

• The categories can be thought of as degrees of difficulties. That is, the first one must be mastered before the next one can take place.

2- THE AFFECTIVE DOMAIN:

The affective domain (Krathwohl, Bloom, Masia, 1973) domain deals with the emotional aspects of learning, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasms, motivations, and attitudes.

The five major categories are listed from the simplest behavior to the most complex:

1. Receiving: The lowest level; the student passively pays attention. Without this level no learning can occur.

2. Responding: The person actively participates in the learning process, not only attends to a stimulus; the student also reacts in some way.

3. Valuing; The person attaches a value to an object, phenomenon, or piece of information.

4. Organizing: The person can put together different values, information, and ideas and accommodate them within his/her own schema; comparing, relating and elaborating on what has been learned.

5. Characterizing: The person holds a particular value or belief that now exerts influence on his/her behavior so that it becomes a characteristic. 

3- The PSYCHOMOTOR DOMAIN:

Skills in the psychomotor domain describe the ability to physically manipulate a tool or instrument.

Characterized by progressive levels of behaviors from observation to mastery of a physical skill, The stages are as follows:

Imitation: Observing and patterning behavior after someone else. Performance may be of low quality. Example: Copying a work of art.

Manipulation: Being able to perform certain actions by following instructions and practicing. Example: Creating work on one's own, after taking lessons, or reading about it.

Precision: Refining, becoming more exact. Few errors are apparent. Example: Working and reworking something, so it will be "just right."

Articulation: Coordinating a series of actions, achieving harmony and internal consistency. Example: Producing a video that involves music, color, sound, etc.

Naturalization: Having high level performance become natural, without needing to think much about it. Example: Michael Jordan playing basketball.