Course Building Blocks: The 3 Theories to Know

I have a great news! If you are a new instructional developer or a subject matter expert (SME) asked to participate in learning and development initiatives, you don’t need to know every theory out there. There are just a few that will give you the foundations and allow you to speak to the design and development of learning projects.

Adult Learning Theory is the foundational theory to all we do so, start by reading our blog post on that then use the three theories below as you build a course, module, lesson, or program.

Bloom’s Cognitive Taxonomy

The cognitive taxonomy developed by Ben Bloom and his colleagues categorizes educational objectives. Bloom and his colleagues developed the taxonomy to stratify the types of cognitive behaviors and to have a common language to describe educational outcomes.

In learning, you always start by asking the question: What is the problem? And the second question is: What is the outcome you want?

The learning objectives for a lesson, a course, a module, or a program are THOSE outcomes.

Bloom’s is all about what learners need to “know” and “do” to be successful at the end of an educational activity (lesson, course, module, program). They are measurable verbs that delineate the difference between learning levels. They tie everything together in the development process when it comes to outcomes.

Let’s think about it from the course level. In the example below, the business goal is to increase sales by a certain percentage.

Ask the question: What do salespeople (the audience) need to KNOW and DO to meet that business goal? These are Terminal Learning Objectives (TLOs).

The TLOs are then the high-level objectives of the learning activity. Think of them like chapters in a book, where the chapter is a lesson in the course. For this example, there are two. Each one starts with an actionable verb.

THEN, ask the question: What do salespeople need to KNOW and DO to meet each of the TLOs? These are the Enabling Learning Objectives (ELOs). Think about them like steps in a process.

These ELOs are then broken down into knowledge points (know) or performance steps (do) that make up lessons in a course. THAT information is your content for the course.

Bloom’s has six levels of learning. It is from the most basic level of learning – think memorization of information – all the way up to utilizing skills from one learning event and seeing how they could be used in a completely different way to create something new.

Self-Directed Learning

Once you know the outcomes expected at all levels you can start deciding the best ways to present the content to the learners. This is not a specific theory, but rather a concept that has literally tons of theories tied to it. Think Adult Learning theory and you have it covered.

Adults like to have some decision-making powers in their learning. Self-directed learning encourages critical-thinking activities, problem-based exercises, and the ability to practice or refresh knowledge when needed. We don’t “spoon feed” our learners, we spark curiosity by posing problems and allowing them to self-discover. We teach people how to seek answers. Think “give a person a fish – they eat for a day”; “teach a person to fish – they eat forever.”

Suggestions:

• Activities that allow learners to use resources to find information like links to intranet and Internet information to answers questions
• eLearnings with simulation activities that provide a safe place to try new processes
• Teach-backs in VILT and ILT courses where learners find information and teach it back to the rest of the class
• Work-based scenarios that allow learners to work through to a solution in the safety of a learning environment

Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Evaluation

Donald Kirkpatrick said that an integrated and hierarchical perspective would yield a superior definition for the term “evaluation”.

Kirkpatrick’s is the most utilized theory when it comes to evaluating learning and development efforts. Everyone has heard of “smile sheets” and unfortunately that is often where course evaluation stops.

Let’s take a look at our example from above: We have ELOs, TLOs, and ultimately the business goal. So – we know the outcomes, we have built the content, learners are taking the course.

Are they successful?

Is the course teaching what they need to know?

Are they applying what they have learned successfully?

Are they meeting the business goal?

Want to know a secret? A well-written learning objective can be turned into an effective evaluation question. For example: “Recognize features of Product A” is an objective that can be evaluated and measured.

Let’s use Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels to demonstrate how to evaluate this (let’s say these questions will be presented in a survey using a Likert Scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree):

You see where this falls off the rails, right? Once you have to start following up days and weeks after the initial learning event – Levels 1 and 2 – people get busy, we are off to the next task, and no one is left to keep the evaluation going. But that’s a different blog!

Now, I know you see the 5^th one listed up there.

In 2011, Atlanta-based Kirkpatrick Partners modified the learning and evaluation model to add Return on Expectations (ROE) of stakeholders as a final measure. Kirkpatrick Partners contends that ROE is the “ultimate indicator of value.” While Return on Investment (ROI) and ROE are common methods for evaluating and justifying training, many training organizations still struggle with the four levels, particularly quantifying levels three and four.

You have the start (Bloom’s), the middle (Self-Directed Learning), and the end (Kirkpatrick’s) – now, go build a course!