Learning objectives
Motivation
Typical course goal:
Understand the analysis and design of hydraulic structures
Typical professor question:
“Does everyone understand?”
Typical student response:
(Silence)
Goals vs. objectives
Goal: Long-range, “big picture” desire
Example: To clean up the Raccoon River watershed
Goals vs. objectives
Objectives: Specific steps to achieve the goal
Examples:
1. Monitor water quality in the watershed
2. Determine whether bacterial contamination
arises from human or animal sources
3. Develop a total maximum daily load
4. Assist unsewered communities in treating sewage
Exercise
How might learning objectives help students
and professors?
Bloom’s taxonomy
1. Knowledge:
Recalling information
Ex: list, identify, outline, define
2. Comprehension:
Grasping basic meaning
Ex: explain, describe, interpret, distinguish
3. Application:
Using information to solve new problems
Ex: apply, calculate, compute, solve
4. Analysis:
Identifying relationships between parts
Ex: classify, derive, explain
5. Synthesis:
Establishing new relationships between ideas
Ex: formulate, design, create
6. Evaluation:
Judging the value
Ex: determine, optimize, evaluate, select, justify
Exercise
1. Knowledge:
a. How would you improve the internal combustion
engine?
2. Comprehension:
b. Who has the better basketball team—ISU or
Texas Tech? Why?
3. Application:
c. What is a derivative (in terms a non-technical
person can understand)?
4. Analysis:
d. What are the “Ten Essentials” of hiking?
5. Synthesis:
e. Why does one feel warm in 70oF water and cold
in 70oF air?
6. Evaluation:
f. What is the intensity of a 24-hour storm with a
10-year return period for Ames?
Example: structural engineering
1. Knowledge
Define deflection, load, moment, moment of inertia,
Young’s modulus, etc.
?
Example: structural engineering
2. Comprehension
Explain Young’s modulus to a non-technical person.
Example: structural engineering
3. Application
Compute the deflection of a beam with given load, properties,
and end conditions.
x
y
Example: structural engineering
4. Analysis
Derive the equation for the deflection of a beam with
given loading and end conditions.
Example: structural engineering
5. Synthesis
Design a structure to meet given criteria.
Example: structural engineering
6. Evaluation
Choose between several proposed structures to meet
given criteria.
?
Exercise
Write learning objectives for all six levels for
• Music teachers
• Football coaches
• Cooking instructors
• Preschool teachers
Literature review
1. Knowledge:
Who has worked on this problem? What did
they do?
2. Comprehension:
What did previous researchers find?
3. Application:
How do those results apply to your problem?
4. Analysis:
What do the results of a particular paper mean
for the more general problem?
5. Synthesis:
What remains to be discovered regarding the
more general problem?
6. Evaluation:
What is the best method for advancing the field?