1. Instructional Design: Session 2
PubMed for Trainers, Summer U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) and NLM Training Center

2. Overview Session 1 Session 2 Session 3
Brief overview of the instructional design process
Training specific audiences
Writing and prioritizing learning goals
Assignment: Choose an audience; write and prioritize learning goals for a one-hour (or less) class
Session 2
Writing objectives
Design template
Assignment: Fill out the template for one learning goal
Session 3
Engaging your audience
Assignment: Describe how you will engage your audience
What questions do you have from Session 1 or from the homework?
Thank you for submitting your homework, and we will be sending feedback soon.
Here is a reminder of where we have been in these instructional design sessions, and where we’re going. In the last session we looked at the instructional design process, and wrote and prioritized learning goals. In Session 3 next week, we’ll look at techniques for engaging your audience.
Today we will look at writing objectives and using a design template to plan the class.
PubMed for Trainers
Summer 2015

3. In the last session, we focused on aspects of the Analyze step in the ADDIE model. Today, we’ll move into the Design step.
PubMed for Trainers
Summer 2015

4. This week: Design
Write specific, measurable objectives for one learning goal
Fill out the rest of the design template:
Instructor demo
Student assessment / exercise
Suggested audiences
Time
These are the steps you will be working on this time for your assignment:
Writing specific, measureable objectives
Filling out a design template with other information, including instructor demo, student assessment and exercise, suggested audience, and time.
Let’s look at this in more detail.
PubMed for Trainers
Summer 2015

5. The Design Template Summer 2015
So here’s what the template looks like that we’ll use in this class. You can use this template in the future to customize YOUR classes.
The template has columns for:
Learning goals
Objectives
Instructor demo
Student exercise/assessment
Suggested audiences
Time
Notes
I’m going to go over each column in the template.
PubMed for Trainers
Summer 2015

6. Reminder: Learning Goals
Learning Goal (Outcome):
BROAD description of the knowledge, skill, or attitude you want the student to adopt
Conduct a simple search
Build a PubMed search with MeSH
The first column in the template is Learning Goals – those are the goals you worked for your homework for today.
A reminder that the Learning Goals or Outcomes are we what we want our students to walk away from our classes with, and are very broad.
See the example here: "Build a PubMed search with MeSH."
PubMed for Trainers
Summer 2015

7. Objectives LEARNING GOAL: Build a PubMed search with MeSH
SPECIFIC behavior that you want students to adopt
Objectives are Measureable
Use Action Verbs
LEARNING GOAL: Build a PubMed search with MeSH
OBJECTIVE: Find the MeSH database
The second column in the template is Objectives.
The objective is the specific behavior that you want students to adopt.
So if the Learning Goal was, “Build a PubMed search with MeSH,” a measurable objective might be, “Find the MeSH database.” That behavior is specific and measureable. The measurable assessment does not necessarily have to be quantitative; it can be an action that the students demonstrate, in this case, by showing that they know how to select the MeSH database from the database selection menu.
We’ll talk in a moment in more detail about how to write measureable objectives.
MEASURABLE ASSESSMENT: Select the MeSH database from the database selection menu
PubMed for Trainers
Summer 2015

8. Objectives LEARNING GOAL: Build a PubMed search with MeSH
Learning Goals can (and usually will) have more than one objective
LEARNING GOAL: Build a PubMed search with MeSH
OBJECTIVE 1: Find the MeSH database
Because the learning goal is very board, a learning goal can, and usually will, have more than one objective. There will be additional objectives you will need to write in order to meet the learning goal, “Build a PubMed Search with MeSH”: so in addition to the objective “Find the MeSH database,” you may have objectives such as “Search the MeSH database” and “Select the MeSH term that best represents the concept.”
In this way you can break your teaching down into manageable chunks.
OBJECTIVE 2: Search the MeSH database
OBJECTIVE 3: Select the MeSH term that best represents the concept
PubMed for Trainers
Summer 2015

9. Measureable Objectives Start with Action Words
Not measureable
Measureable
Understand
Know
Explain
Compare
Classify
Diagram
Locate
I mentioned before that objectives should be measurable. Here are two tips on how to approach writing measurable objectives, because it’s not always easy or obvious how to do it.
First, Define a specific action verb when writing the objective. This will make it easier to measure the success of the objective. On this slide, we have some examples of verbs that are measurable and some that are not measurable. Using words like “understand” and “know” make it difficult to measure the success of the objective. Instead, use measurable action verbs like you see on this slide. To help you find additional action verbs, you can use a tool like Bloom’s taxonomy. In the Moodle section for this week, we have given you links to Bloom’s taxonomy and a short section from MIT called, “Writing Meaningful Objectives.” Take a look at those links as you begin writing your objectives.
Second, when writing your objectives, complete this sentence: “at the end of this activity, participants should be able to…” In the case of one of the earlier examples we saw, the sentence would read: “At the end of this activity, participants should be able to: find the MeSH database.” And again, that is a task that you can clearly see whether or not the students have mastered it.
What questions can I answer about how to approach writing objectives?
Complete this sentence:
At the end of this activity, participants should be able to…
PubMed for Trainers
Summer 2015

10. Your Turn: Writing Objectives Exercise
Now let’s try this out.
Poll 1:
Your students’ learning goal is to understand how PubMed processes a search using Automatic Term Mapping (ATM). Which is the best measurable objective?
Know about the PubMed automatic term mapping (ATM) process
Define the PubMed automatic term mapping (ATM) process
Correctly list the steps of the PubMed automatic term mapping (ATM) process
ANSWER: One could define the ATM process by saying, simply, that PubMed matches search terms with field indexes.  “List” is the better answer because a.) a complete understanding of the process would include being able to list the steps, in order, and b.) the instructor would be able to better identify knowledge gaps with this additional detail.
Poll 2 (open ended):
Write a measurable objective for this goal: Search by author
(Possible answers for one objective:
Explain the correct format to use when searching by author; or,
Demonstrate an author search using the correct (lastname space initials) syntax)
(While the poll is up, switch to slides with action verbs)
PubMed for Trainers
Summer 2015

11. Assessing Success LEARNING GOAL: Build a PubMed search with MeSH
Student exercise / assessment
LEARNING GOAL: Build a PubMed search with MeSH
OBJECTIVE 3: Select the MeSH term that best represents the concept
We mentioned in Session 1 that evaluation is at the center of the entire instructional design process. Now that you have written measureable objectives, you will need to plan for how you will assess the success of your objectives. With PubMed classes, you can often do this with a student exercise related to the objective.
Chat question: what other ideas do you have for assessing the success of your students in meeting the objectives?
STUDENT EXERCISE / ASSESSMENT: Click on Hypertension, read scope note, make decision
PubMed for Trainers
Summer 2015

12. The Rest of the Template
The other columns of the template are:
--instructor demo;
--suggested audiences (you might want to mix and match objectives with different audiences);
--the amount of time each objective will take;
--and notes to yourself or to co-trainers.
PubMed for Trainers
Summer 2015

13. Instructional Design Assignment 2
Moodle demo
Now I am going to switch over to Moodle to show you Instructional Design Assignment 2.
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Assignment as it would be in Moodle: (provide Word template name: Instructional Design Assignment)
*Fill out the columns of the design template for ONE learning goal. I recommend that you choose one of your Must Know learning goals.
*Remember to write specific, measurable objectives with action verbs. Use Bloom’s to help you.
*You should have more than one objective, probably 3-5, relating to the Learning Goal. If you only have one, then your learning goal may be too specific. If you have 10, your learning goal was probably too broad. If you have specific questions, contact the instructors for help.
*You are only filling out the design template for one learning goal – you are NOT writing a script or developing a full lesson plan.
*Update the Instructional Design Assignment document you filled out for Session 1. Fill in Section 2 of the Instructional Design Assignment document. Upload the updated document in the Moodle assignment section.
PubMed for Trainers
Summer 2015