Thursday, October 18, 2007

Types of Learning Outcomes

I’ve been conducting research on cognitivism and connectivism for my other online course and ran across an article by Stephen Bostic from Keele University that discussed the various types of learning outcomes. While I’ve understood the guiding influence of learning outcomes for quite a while now, I had never thought of categorizing them by how learning could be demonstrated.

Entitled Instructional Design - Robert Gagné, The Conditions of Learning, this article draws heavily on the work of Gagné and further breaks the types of learning outcomes down by desired skills:

“intellectual skills - concepts
are demonstrated by labeling or classifying things,

intellectual skills - rules are applied and principles are demonstrated,

intellectual skills - problem solving
allows generating solutions or procedures,

cognitive strategies
are used for learning,

verbal information
is stated,

motor skills
enable physical performance,

attitudes
are demonstrated by preferring options.”

While I can’t speak for my fellow students, I found this approach to be both enlightening and absurdly practical. It’s certainly something I’ll keep in mind as I begin to think through future assignments and projects.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Betsy

Thanks for the article on the types of learning outcomes. This certainly brings home the question--What is it we want students to learn from the lesson and how do they demonstrate what they learned?

Unknown said...

Thanks, Betsy - excellent article! I like Gagne's 9 instructional events. Seems like we keep coming back to the idea of engaging the learner and capturing their attention as a critical point, don't we?
K

Paul Silli said...

Great break down of eLearning. Loved the resource. I added it to site. Engaging learning is what eLearning is really all about. What can we educators do to captivate those young minds we are trying to mold? Video, podcasts, text with graphics; it's all just new eye candy for the learner. ;)
Interesting topic though.