by Guy A. Boysen, McKednree University (gaboysen@mckednree.edu)
Imagine that you and your colleagues have just retired to the pub for a well-deserved pint at the end of a long week of work in the knowledge factory. After a few refreshing si
ps, you hear the challenge of “Darts!” Rather than playing the usual game of Cricket or 301, the challenger proposes a new competition but does not bother to share the rules. So, you lob darts at random, sometimes hearing “Nice shot!” and other times “Too bad, mate!” Without a clear target to aim for, however, there is no way for you to improve your performance. You lose, and the next round is on you.
If that sounds frustrating, imagine how students feel when they don’t know what to aim for in their efforts at learning – that is, how they feel in classes without clear learning objectives. Learning objectives refer to statements of what students should be able to do after an educational experience. High-quality learning objectives are clear, measurable, and focused on student outcomes rather than instructional methods (Boysen, 2012). Consider these examples.
- Students in Spanish will be able to ask grammatical questions to solicit various forms of information from Spanish speakers.
- Students who complete library training will be able to identify peer-reviewed journal articles using the EBSCO database.
- Students in Statistics will be able to compute means and standard deviations using hand calculations.
- Readers of this blog will be able to describe the relation between learning objectives and metacognition.
In a straightforward way, learning objectives let students know what they need to know – this is an essential tool for the metacognitive skill of being able to self-assess progress toward educational goals.
Just as you will never win at darts without knowing where to aim, students cannot intentionally evaluate where they are in the learning process without objectives. For example, students in Spanish who are unaware of the learning objective to ask various grammatical questions might mistakenly believe that they are muy bueno with “¿Que pasa?” as their only query. In contrast, students who are aware of the learning objective can more effectively use metacognition by self-assessing their ability to do things like ask for food, directions, the time, or an add/drop slip. Although research is needed to determine if there is a direct link between learning objectives and metacognition, there is longstanding evidence that providing students with learning objectives leads to increased learning (Duell, 1974; Rothkopf & Kaplan, 1972).
Learning objectives clearly have potential as metacognitive tools for helping students assess their own learning, so how do the best college teachers use them? Well, according to An Evidence-Based Guide for College and University Teaching: Developing the Model Teacher (Richmond, Boysen, & Gurung, 2016), there are two fundamental questions that model teachers can say “Yes!” to with regard to learning objectives.
- Do you “articulate specific, measurable learning objectives in your syllabi or other course documents?” (p. 197)
Model teachers know that, for every one of their readings, activities, tests, and papers, students can determine the learning objective and use it to consider whether or not they are achieving the intended goal. The syllabus is an especially important metacognitive tool. It is the place to introduce students to the concepts of metacognition and learning objectives. In fact, you can even use it to establish learning objectives about the development of metacognition itself (see here for more on metacognitive syllabi; Richmond, 2015).
- Do you “provide constructive feedback to students is that is related to their achievement of learning objectives?” (p. 197)
Model teachers recognize that students may be unskilled and unaware (Taraban, 2016), so they frequently offer opportunities for objective evaluation. Evaluations such as quizzes, tests, and rubric scores help to keep students’ self-assessment of learning grounded in reality (see Was, 2014 and Taraban, 2014 for more on feedback). For example, students may be 100% confident in their ability to ask questions in Spanish – that is until an oral examination. Struggling to stammer out a modest “¿Que hora es?” and nothing else should lead students to a clearer awareness of their current abilities.
In summary, don’t let your students lob random intellectual darts at mysterious learning targets. Be a model teacher by providing them with clear learning objectives and feedback on their success so that they can hone their metacognitive skills!
References
Boysen, G. A. (2012). A guide to writing learning objectives for teachers of psychology. Society for the Teaching of Psychology Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology Online. Retrieved from https://legacy.berea.edu/academic-assessment/files/2015/02/Guide-to-Writing-Learning-Objectives-for-Teachers-of-Psychology-Boysen-2012.pdf
Duell, O. P. (1974). Effect of type of objective, level of test questions, and the judged importance of tested materials upon posttest performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 66, 225–323.
Richmond, A. S. (2015, March 6th). The metacognitive syllabus. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/metacognitive-syllabus/
Rothkopf, E. Z., & Kaplan, R. (1972). Exploration of the effect of density and specificity of instructional objectives on learning from text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 63, 295–302.
Taraban, R. (2014, December 10th). Mind the feedback gap. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/mind-the-feedback-gap/
Taraban, R. (2016, April 1st). Unskilled and unaware: A metacognitive bias. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/unskilled-unaware-metacognitive-bias/
Was, C. (2014, August 28th). Testing improves knowledge monitoring. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/testing-improves-knowledge-monitoring/