Educational objectives

In the beginning of the learning cycle you start to formulate your learning objectives as you know. The taxonomy of educational objectives of Benjamin Bloom has always been a good guideline to classify the different objectives you want to reach through learning and training. Bloom developed his taxonomy of cognitive domains and objectives according to three areas of learning:

• Psychomotoric – manipulative or Physical skills
• Affective – Attitudes and emotions
• Cognitive – processing information

We are most used with the latter one which is subdivided in six different categories (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation). For a more in-depth explanation you can click here. In this blogpost we want to show the revised taxonomy to account for the new behaviors emerging as technology advances and becomes more and more omnipresent. The introduction of new technologies in learning and training request a revision of the objectives.

If you want to explore some of the categories and see what it would mean in terms of using specific technologies you can click here.

Colleagues requested some more background on the formulation of learning objectives in general. The first introduction in learning objectives is the eternal lesson that you have to formulate them SMART. After introducing you to the revised taxonomy of bloom, we want to show you the revised acronym as a newly defined way for goal setting.

SMART Acronym Newly Defined for Goal Setting

• We’ll start with S. In addition to specific, don’t stretching, systematic, synergistic, significant and shifting round out the picture?
• M means measurable, but we also recommend meaningful, memorable, motivating and even, magical.
• A is an achievable goal but A also needs to stand for action plans, accountability, acumen and agreed-upon.
• R means relevant, but it also stands for realistic, reasonable, resonating, results-oriented, rewarding, responsible, reliable, rooted in facts and remarkable.
• T means time-based and it also represents timely, tangible and thoughtful.

Start to formulate your own learning objectives, classify them and if you have additional information, please post it here.