Designing learning experiences.

Creation of significant learning experiences follows basic steps of instructional design related to situational factors, goals and objectives, feedback and evaluation methods, teaching and learning activities, alignment of the preceding elements, and course evaluation. Goals should reflect what students will learn at the end of the course and what will still be with them several years later. Objectives should focus on learner performance, not teacher performance, and on behavior, not subject matter; there should be only one learning outcome per objective. Students learn more and retain their knowledge longer if they acquire it in an active rather than a passive manner. The situational factors, goals and objectives, feedback and evaluation, and teaching and learning activities should all reflect and support each other. The act of course evaluation closes the educational loop of design, implement, evaluate, and modify.