As an instructional designer, I find that two of the things that faculty struggle with are developing sound outcome statements and developing interesting online activities that effectively assess those outcomes. I don’t mean to imply that faculty don’t know how to do these things but instead that often, especially with objectives, they are implied instead of explicitly stated. In the face-to-face classroom environment, an instructor can easily adjust objectives and assignments based on class reaction—unfortunately much of this flexibility disappears when teaching online. Online students need to know up front what the objectives are (at both the course and week/modular level) and see a clear connection between those objectives and the assignments/assessments.

Frequently, objectives are written in such a way that the outcome is measuring capabilities only at the lowest end of Bloom’s Taxonomy, e.g. “students will understand….” Not only are these objectives at the lower end of the cognitive-domain scale, but they are often not measurable—how do we know if a student “understands”?

To help faculty develop good objectives, I often refer them to a wonderful tool called the RadioJames Objective Builder. This tool allows you to choose what you want the students to do from a drop-down menu:

Once an area is chosen, a list of verbs and sample objectives appears along with an overview of that level:

This tool makes it so much easier to write good objectives. Once you have these good objectives, the next step is to design good assignments. At the recent EdMedia Conference, there was a presentation on a new tool developed by the LAMS Foundation in Australia. Like the Objective Builder, the LAMS tool, called the LAM Activity Planner, scaffolds and guides faculty—this time in the creation of learning activities. Using a predeveloped form, faculty can choose from activities that have already been created or add their own content. Activities are varied and include things like case studies, role plays, jigsaws, and WebQuests. To view a video and request an account to explore the planner for yourself, see the information on the LAM Activity Planner Wiki page.

Tools like these make the course-planning process easier for both faculty and instructional designers.