Postdoctoral Dental Education

Professional Life-Long Learning Plan

Step 2: Linking Objectives with Learning Activities and Evaluation
Step 4: Evidence of accomplishment

Step 1: Developing Learning Objectives

Competency-Based Learning Objectives

Each learner is required to write a list of objectives to specify what he or she wants to learn and be able to do at the end of the AEGD program. In other words, you will specify the knowledge, abilities, and attitudes that would enable you to practice and apply your learning in the real world, after participating in particular learning activities. Well-framed learning objectives serve to help you to identify an approach to organizing your learning activities, content, and self-evaluation methods.

To be useful, learning objectives need to contain three basic elements:

  1. A verb that describes an action that can be observed, for example, distinguish, predict, perform, etc.
  2. A description of the specific conditions under which the action takes place, for example, type of patient, clinic setting, teamwork, etc.
  3. The acceptable performance level, for example, competent (perform when supervisised), proficiency (perform routinely without supervision), etc.

Some tips for writing objectives:

Learning objectives are NOT:

Avoid the words 'appreciate', 'understand', 'know'. These words are not specific and do not give enough information about you what you want to learn.

After any educational activity three types of learning may occur: cognitive, affective and motor learning. The objectives you write will reflect what you want to learn in each of these three categories.