Objective‐Based Learning Leads To Real Understanding

It has been the belief that student learning objectives are an essential part of learning because they help the student identify the learning expectations of the teacher so that they can focus their learning experience. This study was conducted to determine whether or not the publishing of learning objectives alone help students learn, or whether the students must also be provided with supplemental active learning materials to reach the published objectives. In this study, the students were provided with a list of expected learning objectives, participated in classrooms discussions centered on the objectives, and tested accordingly. Other students had the same experience as described above, but were also given supplemental active learning problems to complete outside of class. These supplemental problems were designed with the question of “How do I get my students from where they are now to where I want them to be?” This is true objective‐based teaching. The results indicate that students that participated in the completion of the objective‐based supplemental coursework were significantly more successful in fulfilling the course objectives, and had a better understanding of the material.