5 Benefits of Planning Elearning Assessments Before Storyboarding
Identifying the Learning Objectives at an Application Level or above
Often learning objectives at an Application level require the Instructional Designer to contextualize the learning content in the form of a scenario or case study. This sensitizes the instructional designer to develop sufficient number of scenarios/cases for the presentation strategy.
To take a simple example from maths, the task of calculating the circumference of a circle can be assessed as how much time a vehicle travelling at a specific speed could circumnavigate a round race circuit.
Separating the Enabling Vs. Terminal Objectives
One immediate advantage of identifying the Application level objectives is that it helps the instructional designers differentiate the Enabling Objectives vs. Terminal Objectives. This facilitates better sequencing of learning topics and the IDs can plan practice exercises based on the Enabling Objectives to scaffold the more difficult topics.
Framing Plausible Distracters
When framing assessments, an instructional designer often come across the difficulty of writing plausible distracters. Such assessment items indicate the need for SME-ID interaction for developing a sufficient range of examples and non-examples.
Ensuring a Sufficient Range of Distracters
Assessments framed on learning objectives at an Application level present an additional challenge. Lazy instructional designers repeat the same scenario for a practice exercises as well as the assessment interactivity. This reduces the measurability of the learning objective from the application level to a knowledge level.
To avoid this, further SME-ID interaction is required to develop a robust range of examples and examples. This robust range of examples becomes the raw material for visualization in storyboards.
Visualizing Graphics as Part of the Assessment
Learning objectives at an application level often require the use of graphic illustrations as distracters. This requirement becomes a critical input when designing a presentation strategy and visualizing the learning content.
For example, to test if the learner understands how a communication satellite orbits around earth, you could use an illustration of the heliocentric orbit with references of the earth and sun. Otherwise, you will have tested just recall or association of the term “heliocentric” with “communication satellite.”
