Monday, October 05, 2009

CCK09 outcomes for all

Tracy Roberts talks about PLEs with no “course” (in the traditional sense), and not “designing” courses (in the traditional sense, with outcomes/objectives... and I have to stop right there!

Outcomes/objectives are still there. Some are yours, or those of other influencers, mentors, facilitators, but most are the learners. You may not value or approve of the learner's desired outcomes but they may be personally very important. Nor does your desired outcome necessarily provide any rational or motivation for the learner's learning.

There is lots to discuss about scope, make-up, inclusion, relationships, connections, content in personal learning but I don't remember anyone saying that there weren't objectives and/or outcomes. There isn't any point to all of this learning if there aren't outcomes. Any learner implicitly knows this. It may be a surprise to find out what the objectives and outcomes actually are. But that's the power of reflection.
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2 comments:

  1. > There isn't any point to all of this learning if there aren't outcomes. Any learner implicitly knows this. It may be a surprise to find out what the objectives and outcomes actually are. But that's the power of reflection.

    Well, strictly speaking, any activity whatsoever has outcomes, so what you mean can't simply be something that is identified later, on reflection.

    'Outcomes', used in the context of learning, universally refer to some *prior* intent to achieve some specific learning. And it is *that* approach to learning that is called into question.

    Because one of the things that 'any learner knows' is that if you put yourself into the right situation, with the right people, you will learn - even if you don't know what or how, and couldn't give a 'learning objective' if your life depended on it.

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  2. How explicit must the prior definition of the intent be to be an "outcome" in your view? This seems to be the issue.

    Before I spend my time and energy learning something, I think I have some expected (previously defined) outcome in mind, not that I write it out in the SLO format our administration requires. Still, it was purposeful from the outset.

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