Designing or Redesign a Course?
Tip 2: Be a SMARTE Pants
Because brains are goal-driven, essential to learning experiences are goals that make explicit what the learning target is, the path for meeting it, and ways to measure its achievement. Research shows that clarity for teachers about what they want their students to learn is one of the most significant factors related to student success. For students, research has shown that a clear objective drives the nervous system to direct energy purposefully, to build relevance, perceive information, and act strategically. SMARTE is an acronym that can assist you when writing learning objectives that support your teaching and your students’ learning success.
Student Centered & Specific: Neuroscience studies confirm that students’ motivation, focus, and persistence are all positively affected when learning objectives are clearly communicated. To be Student-centered and Specific, learning objectives should state exactly what is to be accomplished by the students with emphasis on their role (rather than on the teacher’s role). The specificity of the objective should be focused, narrow, and targeted while remaining on what the students will know and be able to do.
Measurable: When students are aware of the criteria by which their attainment of the learning objective will be assessed, they show better long-term academic development in comparison to those focused on a final grade or on outperforming others. To be Measurable, learning objectives should communicate the expected quality of work or basis for evaluation and grading. To ensure clarity and that the learning objective can be measured include the intended cognitive process (types of thinking) and knowledge dimension (types of knowledge, behaviors or skills).
Attainable, Aligned & Authentic: Students need to believe they have the capacity to succeed. Students who experience multiple failures may fall victim to a fixed mindset concluding that they will never be good at something and therefore less inclined to try. To prime the brain to invest in learning, the objectives must be viewed as doable and worthwhile. To be Attainable, Aligned, and Authentic learning objectives should consider students’ developmental levels and the use of scaffolds to support learning that is directly tied to learning activities and assessments that use meaningful “real-world” applications.
Relevant: Brains are goal driven but only when the learning objectives are viewed as personally relevant and valuable. Students’ interest and motivation suffer if they do not see utility in what they are being asked to learn. To be Relevant, consider learning objectives that help students make personal connections to the content. “Hook” your learners by selling the curriculum components that speak to their interests, background knowledge, and future personal and/or professional self.
Timely & Transferable: Students are more likely to persist through challenging tasks when they believe they are making progress towards the objective. Yet, young adults do not easily recognize the correlation between their effort and goal attainment due to their under-developed prefrontal cortex. To be Timely and Transferable it is essential to clearly articulate the learning objectives before, during, and after learning occurs to assist in the creation of learning goals, benchmarks for identifying progress, and a specific ending point for assessment. Learning objectives should strive for deep learning that equips students to know when and how to apply the knowledge and skills in new situations – beyond the context in which it was learned.
Equitable: It is important to design a course that relates to, represents, and honors the diversity of those you teach as well as of those who have not been part of “traditional” course materials. The purpose is to be mindful of those who may need additional support and to interrupt patterns of inequity by developing curriculum that is inclusive of and accessible to everyone. To be Equitable, learning objectives should address the needs of students who are not succeeding, whose needs are not being met, and/or who have traditionally been outside the sphere of success by thinking about multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement.
For supporting literature regarding this tip. click here.
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