From DSC:
As I was traveling down one of the local roads the other day, the thought reoccurred to me …that driving along a road is such an apt metaphor for this idea of using the terms “learning objectives” and “learning outcomes.”
I’m going down the same road.
I can look ahead to see where I want to go. But that doesn’t mean that I’m for sure going to get there. That’s where I’m heading and I hope that I will get there, but several things will need to go right.
OR…I can look in the rearview mirror of my car and see where I’ve already been….what’s already taken place. I’ve already passed such and such a point (or points).
That is, I can’t talk about learning outcomes if I’m just getting on the road. At that point, I can talk about where I hope to go (i.e., my learning objectives), but I can’t talk about my learning outcomes until I’ve been traveling for a while.
Where this gets muddy/tricky is when we discuss entire programs. Then the term “learning outcomes” is often used. I get that — it makes sense at that level of things. But if we are talking about an individual course as seen in Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard Learn, etc…then it makes more sense to me to continue to use the phrase “Learning Objectives.”