Understand
Definition of learning objective:
Learners who have mastered this level should be able to explain ideas and concepts, discuss and describe a topic in detail, explain what it means, recognise it and translate the facts in some way.
They can paraphrase a point, or compare and contrast information.
Other active verbs for Understand: Classify, Compare, Detail, Describe, Discuss, Explain, Summerize, Visualize, Defend, Associate
Let's do it! Activity examples for facilitators...
Participants create a Quiz
Ask participants to create a quiz which other participants will need to answer. They can do this in teams or individually. They can make a quiz individually, in teams, or collaboratively (everyone sends their questions and correct answers to the facilitator who enters them in a quiz tool).
You might find that some of the questions might be poorly formulated or that the "right answer" actually was wrong. You can use that for a follow-up activity by asking the learners to improve the quizz and explain why.
This activity can be adapted to be used for other levels of learning: you can ask the participants to explain why they chose these innovations (Analyse), or you can ask the participants to rate the innovations posted by their peers (Evaluate). If you want to take the activity all the way to Create, you can ask participants to design an innovation framework (for example a Matrix) which they will use to rate the innovations gathered by their peers.
Tech: Kahoot is a great tool for this activity.Good questions to ask learners to make them Understand:
What does this mean? Which are the facts? State in your own words. Is this the same as ...? Give an example. Select the best definition. Condense this paragraph. What would happen if ...? Explain why ... What expectations are there? What seems to be ...? Is it valid that ...? What seems likely? Which statements support ...? Outline ... What could have happened next? Can you clarify...? Can you illustrate...? Does everyone think in the way that ... does?Get the free related tool
Bloom’s Taxonomy is a model for defining learning objectives. Here are some tips for organisational learning facilitators on using to design different kind of activities, using appropriate tech and questions to ask in participative settings.
All too often, when we design learning (whether a workshop or a program), we start by asking ourselves what content we should cover. This leads us to design content-heavy interventions which take the form of a presentation often accompanied by bullet point slides.
If we formulate learning objectives as answers to the question “what should the participants be able to do as a result of the workshop”? We design completely different interventions.
The impact of learning becomes an ability to do something better or differently and this implies more than listening. Interventions designed as an answer to this question have hands-on learning at their core because, in order to be able to do something, we need to practice it.
Once we start with “what should the participants be able to do as a result of the workshop”? we need to answer by formulating learning objectives which start with “the participants will be able to” followed by an active verb such as the ones presented in this blog.
