Short Courses and Workshops

Improving the Impact of Learning, Teaching and Professional Development

Jennifer Moon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780749432669
• eBook ISBN: 9781135377939
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

A discussion of the management of learning on short courses and in workshops, which may take place in a wide range of "educational" or training situations. It cuts across the cultures of academic teaching and training and draws on Jenny Moon's experience in both fields.

1

The process of building a course – aims, outcomes and their relationship to course impact

Introduction

This chapter concerns elements that are particularly significant for course planning. There will be reference to factors that govern or shape or determine course aims and learning outcomes (structuring factors), and reference to the role, structures and qualities of aims and learning outcomes. There will also be reference to assessment criteria, assessment, the strategy of instruction and the place of evaluation. The structure of a course is important. In a well-designed course there should be discernible relationships between the elements of design – the aim and learning outcomes, the learning outcomes and any form of assessment criteria and thence assessment method.

Aims and learning outcomes are particularly important when the emphasis is on ensuring that courses have an impact, because their presence underpins the precision that is needed to achieve impact. The chapter explores good practice in the writing of clear statements that relate to the quality of the course and to its potential impact and that are more than administrative paper exercises.

Learning outcomes imply the means by which we know that learning has been achieved – ie it implies assessment criteria. While some courses are not assessed, increasingly there is a realization that assessment has different roles. Assessing a course is not just about telling learners how well they know something, but it can be a potent means of improving the impact.

The chapter begins with a review of course development. The section introduces a sequence, which is followed for the rest of the chapter. The start of this sequence is what we have described as structuring factors. Four different factors are identified that may or may not guide the writing of course aims, but they do guide the writing of learning outcomes. The next section looks at the differences between aims, learning outcomes and objectives. Two further sections consider the practical matter of the writing of aims and learning outcomes. There is much to say about learning outcomes: about their content, their uses, and the development of personal learning outcomes by participants on a course. An important point is made about the range of concern of learning outcomes. If there is assessment of the learning, then assessment criteria relate learning outcomes to the assessment task with greater precision; and there are some more general points following this. The final section is completely practical, comprising a list of words that are useful in the writing of learning outcomes and assessment criteria.

Course development

This chapter will follow an ‘ideal’ sequence of stages for the development of a course. However, ideals are not always followed and a course will not always follow the sequence in the early stages. The sequence starts with the structuring factors that may guide the writing of aims and learning outcomes. Structuring factors are reference points and examples of these are National Vocational Qualifications, professional development frameworks or level descriptors in higher education (HECIW, 1996, Higher Education Credit Initiative,Wales). In the real world a course may be developed in order to relate to one reference point, and later it is mapped on to others.

The sequence of course development that is illustrated below provides a means of checking and improving the coherency of a planned course and hence it promotes good practice. If a course is to be accredited or validated by an external body, then the good demonstration of practice becomes essential. Figure 1.1 provides an overview of the process and the relationships between the elements. It is not a blueprint and the hope is that where it appears to conflict with actual practice, useful thought is stimulated which may or may not in the end concur with the diagram. Structuring factors are described in detail below.

Figure 1.1 An overview of course development

Structuring factors that guide the development of a course

Relatively few courses just start up with the writing of aims or learning outcomes. Structuring factors influence the nature, quality or content of the learning that is required in the course and that will be reflected in the manner of setting of aims or the writing of learning outcomes. The most likely factors to influence course design are the following, though several could act together in the same course.

Continuing professional development. Factors that might govern the writing of learning outcomes for short courses are those in frameworks for continuing professional development (CPD). CPD frameworks may determine the types or standards of courses that are deemed appropriate for a particular stage of professional development. They might, for example, require that learners can manage their clients or those with whom they work in a particular but progressively more sophisticated way. The development of a short course to facilitate this learning would be described in learning outcomes that were derived from the framework.

Structuring factors that determine standards. Courses are often offered at different ‘levels’ or stages. These levels or stages usually relate to the progression of learning and hence reflect increasing complexity of learning. Level descriptors, for example, are statements of the quality of learning that is to be expected of learners at particular stages of higher education (eg HECIW, 1996). Their function is to bring some consistency to the education given in different institutions by providing guidance for writing learning outcomes for modules – and ultimately the function of level descriptors is to provide guidance for standards. Short courses run by institutions of higher education may be described in terms of their ‘levels’ and learning outcomes for such courses would be written in relationship to a level. There are usually three undergraduate levels and one or more postgraduate levels (eg master’s and taught doctorate) (HECIW, 1999). Other courses might be written to support learning for National Vocational Qualifications at different levels.

Curriculum and the desire to inform or share interest. Sometimes – for example in the context of adult education or leisure provision – the curriculum provides the main impetus for the development of a course.

Identified training needs. Here the learner herself or someone else has identified a gap in the learner’s functioning. The learner is on the course in order to overcome that gap. It is interesting that a common term for this is ‘training need’ when in fact the need is for learning and not training. This is a vocabulary issue (see Chapter 2). Training/learning needs are quite different to the schemes mentioned above; they will still govern the development of appropriate learning outcomes. It may be that those determining and describing these ‘gaps’ should pay more attention to the level of learning that is required. Training or learning needs tend to be described in a manner that does not take account of the depth of learning that is desirable. Later chapters on learning indicate that learning is of different qualities (see Chapter 3).

The relationship of the course to a particular framework may or may not be subject to later evaluation, validation or accreditation.

The differences between aims, learning outcomes and objectives

In this section we consider the distinction between aims, learning outcomes and objectives in order to clarify their roles and to indicate why it may be useful to abandon the term ‘objectives’. Aims, learning outcomes and objectives can be written for instruction or learning of any size chunk. They may be written for a single presentation or workshop session, or a day course, or a programme that is made up of many short courses. There is one aim that may be made up of several sub-aims, and there are a number of learning outcomes. The descriptions below relate to a short course. In this context, the term ‘learning outcome’ refers to the statement of anticipated or intended learning. Unfortunately the words are often used in a generic manner to describe the actual learning that takes place in a course (eg as in Trigwell and Prosser, 1999) where an alternative term might be ‘the results of the learning on the course’.

In thinking about aims and learning outcomes, it is important to distinguish between the processes of instructing and those of learning. They are different but clearly their functions are or should be related. This issue is explored at greater length in Chapter 2. An aim is usually written in terms of a teaching/training or instructional intention. It generally indicates what it is that the instructor is intending to cover in the course, though it may refer to it in terms of the curriculum. In contrast to this, learning outcomes are written in statements of the learning that the learners are anticipated to achieve.

One of the major reasons for confusion in this area of aims, outcomes and objectives lies with the word ‘objectives’. Objectives can be written in the form of instructional intentions or in terms of intended learning outcomes. In the same description of a course or part of a course, it is not unusual for both forms of language to be used for objectives. If statements are to be used properly to underpin the structure of a course, learning outcomes, at least, need to be written in the language of learning and not instruction.

Aims

We have suggested that an aim be couched in terms of teaching intention. An example of an aim is given here: ‘The aim of this course is to improve the expertise of retail-based pharmacists in helping customers with problems of insomnia.’ The statement does not relate to the actual learning process of the participants – who presumably are pharmacists in this example. It is the instructor who will rally resources in order to facilitate the improvement of the expertise. Occasionally words are used that are a little ambiguous. For example: ‘The aim is to explore the use of the Internet with infant school children.’ Here the aim may be implying that the instructor or the instructor and the learners will do the exploring. The aim could be clearer (who is doing the exploring?). Learning outcomes should also clarify this by indicating the actual learning content for the participants.

If learning outcomes are to be written for a course, the aim can be written as an introductory statement – perhaps more like a rationale. It might describe how the course relates to other courses or mention required prior learning or experience. It may even incorporate some form of mission statement or other generalization about the context of the course. It does not need to be written in one sentence. In the context of Figure 1.1, because an aim is written in terms of teaching or instruction, when the learning behaviour of learners is the central concern of the course, aims are not as directly related to the structuring factors as are learning outcomes. It could be said that they represent the instructor’s best guess about how to facilitate the learning that is required. An aim statement may address the quality of the learning that is to be facilitated. It may, for example, suggest that competency is required (Jessup, 1991), or that the learning should be to a certain level or indicate that a general process of informing or education is desired. This can be a helpful element in the aim if it is true for all the anticipated learning, as it then sets a general context.

Learning outcomes

Definition

While an aim is generally about instructing, a learning outcome is about learning. It is an anticipation of what it is that the learner will have learnt at the end of the course and learning outcomes will have a more direct link with structuring factors because the learning is where their influence is expressed. Learning outcomes are independent of the process of instruction. It is possible for a block of learning to be described only by learning outcomes. This would generally be in the context of independent learning and the learning outcomes indicate to the learner what she will need to learn, usually for some form of assessment process.

Learning outcomes are typically introduced by a phrase such as: ‘At the end of the course the learners are expected to be able to…’ An example is: ‘…describe the principles of health promotion as they relate to and might be applied in their practice in nursing. Illustrate them with effective examples.’ Or, ‘…demonstrate in role play three means by which they might introduce suggestions concerned with the improvement of health into typical interactions with patients on the ward.’

Sometimes ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 The process of building a course — aims, outcomes and their relationship to course impact
• 2 Learning from short courses: the context of learning
• 3 Learning from short courses: depth and meaning in learning
• 4 Learning from short courses: the differences between learners
• 5 Instruction and the facilitation of learning: the context of instruction
• 6 Instruction and the facilitation of learning: the facilitation of learning for impact
• 7 Designing courses for impact
• 8 The components of a short course
• 9 Improving the impact of short courses: a summary of the main ideas
• References
• Index