A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini sculpts the faces of thousands of people in Afghanistan, torn between war and survival, people, whom we in the safety of our homes can never ever imagine of. The people* in his book pop-out and seize your very existence by the throat and nearly chokes you with tears of sadness.

There is brutality of war, and then there is hope and peace that you thank and say a pray for. There is pain and suppression you find impossible to bear and believe.

His book pivots around two Afghani women, fifteen years apart, caught in the same situation, under the same roof fighting for survival and sanity. A dense narrative of two lives intervened with love, cruelty of war, motherhood and dreams of a better life.

My favorite portion of the book is when Babi, Laila’s father, says these lines to her…
“…You can be anything you want, Laila. I know this about you. And I also know that when this war is over, Afghanistan is going to need you as much as its men, maybe even more. Because a society has no chances of success if its women are uneducated…”

*I refrain from referring to the people in the book as just characters of the book as they are so real, all through the book they never seem fictitious to you. …A Thousand Splendid Sons and Daughters of Afghanistan…I would say…

Learning Objectives, are the GPS of Learning

Most of us in the training industry would agree that Learning Objectives (LOs) are to us what a road map or a GPS is to a driver. Well! That makes them sound super cool, let's find out what's all the hype about…

An objective is a statement that describes the intended result of an instruction, in other words, what the learner will be able to do at the end of the training program.

That doesn't sound super-cool. So what's the hype about?

LOs when articulated well can explicitly and precisely state the behavior and the performance expected from a learner at end of the course.

Now how about that?

Learning objectives' aim to describe specific, measurable, and observable behaviors, that communicate the intent of the instructional and the goals of the course.
Objectives set design and assessment criteria for the expected learning.

This keeps getting better…and better…
and now for the icing on the cake…the benefits of learning objectives…

Objectives help both instructional designers and students to focus on learning.

• Direct their focus on learning
  
• Define the scope of learning
  
• Ensure effective learning
  
• Understand the importance of learning
  
• Help to make the course cohesive
  
• Provide focus to the subsequent design process
  
• Provide a basis for testing/assessing learning

What do you say, aren’t the LOs the GPS of learning........