When thinking about a course, the first step is to start with “analyze” the course. T There are three keys through the whole process of analyzing: Who are your audience? What is your Training Goal? How is your teaching site? These three problems are closely associated with each other. You can analyze a good course only by thinking these three problems.
But I want to start with a key: Training goal. This is the place where many people meet problem in. Once making this problem clearly, other problems would be more easier.
What is “Training
Goal”? It is what you want to complete through this course. Or even further:
when students completing this course ,what can they get? This concept is not
hard right? However ,many course didn’t do this properly!
Useless Training Goal
Let's continue using the common course "Time Management" as an example to distinguish between correct and incorrect training goal. For instance, what do you think of the following statement?
"The training goal of the Time Management course are: enhancing personal work efficiency through time management, to ensure smooth workflow, to increase overall company productivity, and to lead you to a better life after the course!" The above statement sounds impressive, doesn't it? However, it is a useless training goal!
"Useless?! But each sentence sounds great? What makes it useless?" I know you must be eager to ask! Take a closer look at each sentence. While the goals are lofty and sound correct, they are utterly impossible to evaluate immediately after the course has ended!
That's right! The above-mentioned goals, such as "enhancing work efficiency," "smooth workflow," "increased productivity," and even "a better life," are seemingly impressive but unevaluable goals. How can one evaluate whether work efficiency has improved after a class? Whether work has become smoother? Whether the participants have become more productive? And phrases like "a better life," "enhancing organizational competitiveness," "improving core competencies" - these slogan-like phrases are poor learning objectives!
When
goals cannot be evaluable, you'll find that no one knows whether a course has
achieved its objectives after it's taught. Anyone can teach the course, and
afterwards, you can say it has helped everyone improve their work efficiency.
After all, there are no standards for evaluating whether this has happened or
not. It can't be discerned in the classroom setting either! Hence, it doesn't
matter who teaches the course! This is a common issue many courses encounter
from the outset, i.e., unclear training goal!
Effective Training Goal
So, what constitutes good training goal? They are those that meet the audience's needs and can be immediately assessed in the teaching setting. Still using the "Time Management" course as an example, better training goal should look something like this:
"Through
the Time Management course, we hope that students will learn three key points:
work order arrangement, time management techniques, and the application of
various tools. The first key point, work order arrangement, includes the
important and urgent matrix, identifying high-value tasks and time-wasting
pitfalls. The second, time management techniques, we will introduce methods
such as the Pomodoro Technique, prime time, time logging, work period
efficiency analysis, daily to-do lists of 5 items, and GTD among others. The
third point, the application of different tools, introduces both digital and
analog time management tools, such as time management apps, timers and Time
Timers, Kanban management tools, and so on."
After
reading the above paragraph, have you noticed what this course is going to
teach? A basic outline is already forming! When planning the course, we should
also concurrently consider: how can we verify at the end of the course whether
the students have achieved the expected training goal? For example, for this
Time Management course, we could plan a case study, letting students analyze
their own weekly schedule, identifying their high-value tasks and prime time,
or using a demo case, asking everyone to utilize a digital tool to fill in a
daily to-do list of 5 items. Alternatively, we could ask students to plan how
to integrate today's learning into their future work.
Conclusion
Management
guru Peter Drucker once mentioned in his book "The Effective Executive:
The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done", the importance of
setting your goals and reviewing them after a while to see the gap between your
expectations and actual accomplishments. This process allows for continuous
refinement and adjustment, leading you towards improved performance. Although
Drucker's core focus was how managers can effectively manage their time goals,
I believe the same principle applies to the setting of educational goals:
having a clear teaching goal initially, and being able to immediately evaluate
the difference between your original expectations and the actual result after
the teaching concludes. By doing this continuous adjustment, you have the
opportunity to progress towards a better course!
If you're interested in "Teaching Techniques" and related courses offered by SFCLASS LTD., you can fill out the course priority notification form below to stay updated on the latest course openings (so you won't miss out when courses are already full!). And don't worry, we won't spam you with advertisements when there's nothing happening XD
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