Defining learning objectives

Course Creation at DataCamp

Kelsey McNeillie

Instructor Success Manager

Clear learning objectives

States measurable outcome
"Learner will be able to <verb> ..."
Helps you scope your lesson

Graphic of a checklist

Measurable learning objectives

Graphic of a ruler

Do This	Not That
Learner will be able to create a variable that represents a string	Learner will know what a variable is

Specific learning objectives

Do This	Not That
Learner will be able to classify sentences as "positive", "negative", or "neutral" using NLTK's sentiment analysis	Learner will perform sentiment analysis

Keep lessons concise and engaging
Helps DataCamp better assess your course outline

Learning objectives solve a problem

Do This	Not That
Learner will be able to construct reusable code blocks using functions	Learner will be able to create functions
Learner will be able to create histograms to compare datasets with similar means, but different distributions	Learner will be able to create histograms

Motivate each learning objective with a real-world application

Learning by doing

Do this	Not that
Ask learners to build and fit a linear regression model to a dataset of heights and weights	Ask a multiple choice question about which linear model best fits a dataset
Use scikit-learn to train a decision tree model	Code a decision tree Class from scratch

Theory is nice; practice is better

Expertise and industry insights

Do this	Not that
Create a histogram based on the radii of different tumors from a public dataset	Create a histogram based on random numbers generated by a normal distribution

Choose engaging, real-world scenarios

Expertise and industry insights

Do This:

# Give variables relevant names

everest_height = 29029
heightest_peaks = ['Mount Everest',
                   'K2',
                   'Kangchenjunga']

Not this:

# Give variables generic names

foo = 12
my_list = ['item1',
           'item2',
           'item3']

Summary

Write clear, measurable learning objectives
Encourage learning by doing
Incorporate expertise and industry experience

Let's practice!

Course Creation at DataCamp