Tag: inclusive learning design

Writing Proper Learning Outcomes

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Before you start writing learning outcomes, let’s take a moment and identify the elements of a learning outcome. Here, I’ve given examples of what to do and what not to do. When you put the four parts together, you have a well-written learning outcome.

  1. State who will be doing the learning.

Don’t: “Anyone will…”

Don’t: “I will show you…”

Do: “Participants will…”

2. Use action verbs that can be measured.

Don’t: “Learn how to build a house.”

Don’t: “Know how to build a house”

Do: “Demonstrate how to build a house”

3. Specify the condition that you’ll measure learning.

Don’t: “After this lesson…”

Don’t: “After this lesson…”

Do: “Through this activity…”

The idea here is to select a time, activity, or assignment that you’ll be able to observe or measure learning during.

Set up the environment so that you can see if learning has taken place.

4. Add the measurement criterion of success.

Don’t: “…successfully”

Don’t: “…better than anyone”

Do: “…according to the checklist”

Here, we have to signal what we’re measuring to the learners. What goes into your rubric or checklist? How are you grading the success of your learners?

This is the criterion that you’re wanting to communicate early on to your learners ahead of time before the assignment or condition takes place.

Learning outcomes include these 4 elements to be useful. That is, when you write learning outcomes like this, it specifies the goal for the learners and how you’ll assess their learning.

That’s half of the design right there! Not only is this a time saver, but it’s also a way to motivate your learners to achieve the goals you create for them.

Types of Learning Objectives

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What change do you want to see in your learners? ‍

… I know, another broad question. So let’s break it down even further:

What do you want your learners to change as a result of interacting with your online learning environment? There are 3 domains we can choose from:

  • Cognitive (Knowledge)
  • Affective (Attitude, Feelings, or Emotions)
  • Psychomotor (Physical or Manual Skills)

Once you select the domain, then you can choose an action verb associated with the domain to describe that end result. More to come on how to write effective learning outcomes later. Stay tuned!

The Freedom of Freelancing

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Being a freelancer, I get to choose the projects I spend my time on, but this project in particular is rare and beautiful.

🤸🏼 It’s a chance to make a huge impact around the country for marginalized communities, AND the clients understand the importance of inclusive curriculum all the way from crafting the content to designing the visual aspects, and assessing in a way that’s responsive and sustaining for the culture of the learners. 🏳️‍🌈

I love what I do. 😍

What is the goal of your learning environment?

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What’s with the blank stare? I get it, it’s a pretty broad question.

You can also answer this question by answering some others:

  • What do you want your learners to be able to do as a result of being in the online learning environment?
  • How would learners demonstrate what they’ve learned?

These questions all point you towards learning goals/objectives/outcomes. This is were the designer starts to align their content and assessments within the learning environment.

The tip here is to be explicit when stating your goals for the learners. This takes the guessing game out of learning and directs learners to what you’re intending for them to get out of the environment. State your goals at the beginning. State your goals often, and state your goals for each assessment. This helps the learners connect the dots throughout the learning experience.

Whose Voices are you Elevating in Online Environments?

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Whose voices are you elevating in the online learning environments you design? Not sure? Let’s take a look together. I’ll wait. 😁

…

First, review and assess the content and sources that are being shared with your learners.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Are there a variety of perspectives and experiences represented?
  • What was your criteria when selecting these resources?
  • How might your learners see themselves reflected in the content you curate?

Next, search for more diverse authors, contributors (like guest speakers), and entrepreneurial creators on the topic. This is hard sometimes. We’ve gotten so used to perpetuating the majority voices, it’s difficult to actively create a new system. Overtime, it gets easier if we all work to adjust our habits.

Co-Create Community Norms First

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Unpopular opinion: Learning isn’t first.

A way to make your learners feel comfortable in the online learning space you create is by co-creating community norms for interactions before any learning occurs.

This might look like…

  • voting on community guidelines in a shared document
  • an open dialogue about what environment everyone would like to contribute knowledge towards
  • a video submission from your learners discussing their learning strengths and needs from a learning environment

The idea is to work together with the learners to decide on what the learning space will provide everyone, the expectations of the facilitator/instructor and the student, and how to keep each other accountable.

I’m curious how you co-create community norms with your learners! What’s the process that you follow?