Table B: Examples of Learning Objectives by Level of Cognition
LEVEL OF COGNITION
EXAMPLE OF LEARNING OBJECTIVES
VERBS USED TO REPRESENT LEVEL OF COGNITION
Use medical terms appropriately in a variety of contexts.
Act, administer, assess, change, chart, choose, demonstrate, determine, develop, discover, draw, establish, imitate, implement, include, inform, instruct, participate, predict, prepare. provide, report, select, show, solve, use Distinguish, confirm, categorize, organize, translate, contrast, differentiate, question, investigate, examine, compare, discriminate, detect, classify, outline, analyze Evaluate, prove, refute, argue, justify, support, convince, debate, weigh, prioritize, judge
Apply
Categorize medical terms according to the body systems to which they apply.
Analyze
Evaluate the appropriateness of the use of the medical term in selected documents.
Evaluate
2.
Learning Activities
Testing Student Competence The learning objectives also play a role in developing exams to test students’ knowledge, since they are designed to highlight what is important in the course. It follows that the test items should be crafted to give students the opportunity to use the knowledge presented in situations close to the expectations of the workplace. While rote memorization (repeating certain facts until it is instilled in their memory bank) may be helpful in the initial exploration of knowledge, this approach alone will not prepare students to use knowledge in a meaningful way in the workplace. Just as teaching–learning activities should be designed to represent, as closely as possible, “real-world” scenarios, so should test questions. For this reason, most licensing or certification examination questions are written at either the application, analysis, or evaluation level. This requires that courses leading to such exams should mirror this expectation. Learning objectives provide the road map for designing the teaching–learning activities in class or in homework. For example, the following activities correspond to the objectives outlined in Table B: § Apply: Student will translate examples of patients’ descriptions of their history into appropriate medical terminology. § Analyze: Students will categorize a list of medical terms according to the body systems they represent. § Evaluate: Individually or in groups, students will review examples of medical documents and determine the appropriateness of various terms in various contexts. They should be able to correct any mistakes found by substituting the correct term. Importantly, retention of knowledge does not occur if the student interacts with the knowledge only once in class. Students are more likely to retain information if they repeatedly use the knowledge necessary for a competent practitioner.
3.
3
Powered by FlippingBook