Learning GOALS

From ACGME Program Requirements for Graduate Medical Education in Pediatric Emergency Medicine:

Patient Care and Procedural Skills: Fellows must be able to provide patient care that is compassionate, appropriate, and effective for the treatment of health problems and the promotion of health. Fellows must be able to competently perform all medical, diagnostic, and surgical procedures considered essential for the area of practice.

Medical Knowledge: Fellows must demonstrate knowledge of established and evolving biomedical, clinical, epidemiological and social behavioral sciences, as well as the application of this knowledge to patient care.

Practice-based Learning and Improvement: Fellows must demonstrate the ability to investigate and evaluate their care of patients, to appraise and assimilate scientific evidence, and to continuously improve patient care based on constant self-evaluation and life-long learning.

Interpersonal and Communication Skills: Fellows must demonstrate interpersonal and communication skills that result in the effective exchange of information and collaboration with patients, their families, and health professionals

Professionalism: Fellows must demonstrate a commitment to carrying out professional responsibilities and an adherence to ethical principles.

Systems-based Practice: Fellows must demonstrate an awareness of and responsiveness to the larger context and system of health care, as well as the ability to call effectively on other resources in the system to provide optimal health care.

Learning Objectives

Objectives keep an activity focused, communicate the purpose of the activity, and form the bases of your evaluations.

A good objective answers the question: “What is something measurable that participants be able to do because of their participation in this activity?”

CME objectives must reach a level of change in competency, or above, as described by Dr. Moore. See Tools and Resources below for additional information.

Tools and Resources

The following tools will help you craft CME-compliant objectives that can be evaluated.

• How to Write Great Learning Objectives, by Kevin Kruse – An easy to understand article detailing the how to write learning objectives

• A Model of Learning Objectives – A wonderful, interactive web site by Iowa State University. Based upon the revised model of Bloom’s Taxonomy, mouse-over different sections for examples of level-based verbs.

• Performance and Learning Objectives in Instructional Design – An article detailing the key components of measurable objectives.

• Achieving Desired Results and Improved Outcomes, By Moore, et al. JCEHP, 29, 2009

• Bloom’s Taxonomy, Wikipedia entry – Additional information about how the verbs used in constructing Learning Objectives relate to the abilities of the audience.

• Moore’s Taxonomy, with examples.pdf – Dr. Moore’s taxonomy of educational hierarchies.

• Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy – This web site applies the revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy to emerging technology.

Verbs for Actionable Objectives