ID Phase I Analysis--Learning Task and Goal Analysis

This week, we read much about how to conduct learning task analysis, which includes determining learning goals, objectives, information processing steps and figuring out types or dimensions of learning objectives etc. Compared with the analyses of context or learners, we focus more on the outcome of our designing in completing the step of analyzing learning tasks. And the categories, analyzing approaches, flowcharts, and the Taxonomy Table are of great help in guiding our group design task.

In Chapter 5 Analyzing learning task, Ragan & Smith firstly illustrate the primary approaches in performing a learning task analysis which refers to learning goals, types of learning, information-processing analysis, prerequisite, learning objectives and test, while also remind us of two lessons given by traditional approaches that we should not include Deadwood, and that we ought to identify critical prerequisite information and skills.

Several critical points in determining learning goals: what should be learned should match the problem or issue stated in the needs assessment; use observable and descriptive terms in learning goals to make them unambiguous and specified; tasks should be what learners are able to do after instruction. And I find the points instructive to our Oral English Improvement Project since primarily we thought our task would be so straightforward, which is to improve learners' expression ability in English. However, what does "improve" mean? What specific tasks should they manage to do after applying our design? And most important, why should they acquire such skills? What do we get from the needs assessment? It looks like far more puzzles pop out waiting for us to solve, but actually, we are much better guided with these questions.

Ragan & Smith then introduces several ways of categorizing types of learning outcomes, among which the categories formed by Gagné is the most fundamental and widely-used(Ragan & Smith, 2005), which are declarative knowledge: to understand and recall, intellectual skills: to apply knowledge to unencountered examples, cognitive strategies: to learn how to learn, attitudes and psychomotor skills. Krathwohl also focuses on the categorizing in A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy and providing two dimensions of representing learning goal: knowledge dimension and cognitive process dimension. I find the Taxonomy Table so useful, as Krathwohl mentioned, you can not only understand your goals and the hierarchy among them better, but it also reminds you of what you may overlook.

Aside from the flows, I'm interested in the disputation mentioned in Chapter 5 of some educators (radical constructivists) refusing to address specific learning goals. Reviewing Constructivism, actually, it's something about letting learners build knowledge on their own experience. But we also discussed the potential drawbacks of such a theory and the necessity to combine other theories in conducting specific instructions. So in my opinion, I take the side with Ragan & Smith that instructors should consciously set learning tasks and goals to ensure that learners acquire something after the instruction, instead of wasting their time.

References: Krathwohl 2002

Smith & Ragan Chapter 5