Question

1. Write a SMART objective for the educational presentation.(Smart goals include how you will break down your objectives for your project and what message you want to communicate to the class. (note: the topic is on nutrition and college students)

Answer 1

1. Write a SMART objective for the educational presentation.(Smart goals include how you will break down your objectives for your project and what message you want to communicate to the class. (note: the topic is on nutrition and college students)

Ans:-

How to write SMART objectives?

As well as performing a final review of the year many people have already started thinking about next year and what they want to achieve. A good way of capturing this is to use SMART objectives.

Objectives are concrete achievements. They describe what you are expected to do in your job over a period of time (usually 12 months). They are used to focus you on delivering what is important to the organization. If you do your job successfully, and everyone does their job successfully the organization will be successful. Writing objectives is not easy and can take time, but it is time well spent as you will be clear on what you need to achieve to be successful.

The best way to write objectives is in the SMART format. They must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bounded. A good starting point is to brainstorm who, what, when, where, how, and why:

• Who should be doing it?
• When should it be done by?
• Where should it be done?
• How will it be done?
• Why are you doing it?

Once you have answered these questions you can start to write the objective.

Specific

• Consider what results in you need to achieve to be successful
• Describe specifically what you expect to do/deliver to get these results
• Use action verbs as much as possible

Measurable

• Consider what successful results look like
• Describe how that success will be measured (numeric or descriptive)
• Use terms such as quantity, quality, time, money, percentages and/or changes

Achievable

• Consider what steps you must take to deliver the objective. Then consider what resources you will need (skills/budget/time/authority). Do you have these resources and/or will you get them?
• Describe what you will need yourself and/or from other people or teams to deliver the objective successfully. Make sure that the other people/teams know they are involved

Relevant

• Consider how your objective links into the overall company objectives via your manager/team/ department objectives
• Discuss with your manager how your objectives link to overall company objectives

Time-bound

• Consider when the objective needs to be delivered by a specific time frame (beginning and end date)
• Use specific timeframes, e.g. dates/quarter
• Establish a time frame for short and long term goals
• Make your objectives controllable. Make sure that you and your team believe you can influence the success of each objective. If you don’t believe you can, you may not commit 100 percent to achieve it (and most likely you won’t even try). In that case, it becomes a wish, not an objective.

Managing project calls for clear objectives. After all, a project’s outcomes may be the products or services you develop or the results of using these products and services. The more clearly you define your project’s objectives, the more likely you are to achieve them.

Include the following elements in your objectives:

• Statement: A brief narrative description of what you want to achieve
• Measures: Indicators you’ll use to assess your achievement
• Performance specifications: The value(s) of each measure that defines success
• Identify all objectives. Time and resources are always scarce, so if you don’t specify an objective, you won’t (and shouldn’t) work to achieve it.
• Be sure drivers and supporters agree on your project’s objectives. When drivers buy into your objectives, you feel confident that achieving the objectives constitutes true project success. When supporters buy into your objectives, you have the greatest chance that people will work their hardest to achieve them.
• If drivers don’t agree with your objectives, revise them until they do agree. After all, your drivers’ needs are the whole reason for your project! If supporters don’t buy into your objectives, work with them to identify their concerns, and develop approaches they think can work.
• Be brief when describing each objective. If you take an entire page to describe a single objective, most people won’t read it. Even if they do read it, your objective probably won’t be clear and may have multiple interpretations.
• Don’t use technical jargon or acronyms. Each industry (such as pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, finance, and insurance) has its own vocabulary, and so does each company within that industry. Within companies, different departments (such as accounting, legal, and information services) also have their own jargon. Because of this proliferation of specialized languages, the same three-letter acronym (TLA) can have two or more meanings in the same organization! To reduce the chances of misunderstandings, express your objectives in language that people of all backgrounds and experiences are familiar with.

SMART Objectives: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timed.

· Specific - Be precise about what you are going to achieve. Each the objective should address only one achievement

· Measurable - Quantify your objectives.

· Achievable - Are you attempting too much

· Realistic - Do you have the resources to make the objective happen (personnel, money, materials, and time)?

· Timed - State when you will achieve the objective

There are a variety of types of objectives that can be written, all can be done in the SMART format. Projects should identify both process and outcome objectives

· Process objectives: Lets you know what you are doing and how you will do it; describes participants, interactions, and activities. Answers the questions, did you do what you intended to do (planned activities within the planned timeline)? How well? And with whom? Example measures would be documentation that activities occur such as agendas, sign-in sheets, feedback about how well activity is done (feedback from participants and leaders), who is involved (demographic data—did you reach the intended population? For the intended amount of time?) For example: Provide engaging hands-on professional development on constructing safe lab experiences for elementary students to at least 12 Georgia public elementary teachers. Process objectives should be monitored throughout the project, as appropriate, to determine if activities are on track. Process evaluation creates a continuous feedback loop to improve the program so that outcomes are enhanced.

· Outcome objectives: Lets you know how you will change attitudes, knowledge or behavior; describe the degree to which you expect this to change Example of outcome objective: During the summer program, 75% of the participants will demonstrate increased content knowledge of as measured by comparing outcomes on the pre and post content knowledge assessment.

· Impact objectives –These may be described as the program goals: Lets you know what the long term implications of your program/activity will be; describes the longer-term impact on your target audience or organization

(i.e., improve student academic outcomes measured by an increase in on-time promotions.)

Language in objectives Objectives are active and use strong verbs. Action verbs are observable and better communicate the intent of what is to be attempted (e.g. plan, write, conduct, produce, apply, recite, revise, contrast, install, select, assemble, compare, investigate, develop, etc.)

Avoid generalities in objective statements, and infinitives to avoid include to know, to understand, to enjoy, and to believe. The words need to be not only active but also measurable.

Avoid stating objectives that include multiple outcomes and measures that may result in conflicting results. [Example to avoid: teachers will improve scores on the knowledge test and student grades will increase.]

A goal can be defined as "The purpose toward which an endeavor is directed; an objective." The goal is set as the main single aim and objectives are the elements which together achieve the goal.

The cognitive domain is divided into several levels with the lowest skill level placed on the bottom level and the higher levels radiating upward:

• Evaluation (Highest level)
• Synthesis
• Analysis
• Application
• Comprehension
• Knowledge (Lowest level)

Steps toward writing effective learning objectives:

1. Make sure there is one measurable (performance) verb in each objective
2. Limit one performance verb per learning objective
3. Learning objectives are concise
4. Performances are expressed in terms of what the participant will do (not the presenter)
5. Objectives are realistic and represent authentic outcomes

How to Break Down Your Goals/ objectives

Most people claim to understand the importance of goal setting in order to attain a better life, but in fact, approximately 80 percent of people never set goals for themselves. Even more surprising, of the 20 percent of the population that does set goals, roughly 70 percent fail to achieve the goals they have set for themselves,” states Douglas Vermeeren, best-selling author on goal settings.

The key to actually achieving your goals is to break them down into actionable steps. Scroll down to find out how to do it and ensure accomplishing your objectives.

Set Your Goals

Before breaking down your goals into actionable steps, naturally, you need to establish your goals properly, not just to have them on your mind.

This means that your goals should be as precise as they can be. For example, let’s say you need to write your dissertation, but it’s so hard to start.

If your goal is to write a dissertation, then define it to last detail. What does it imply specifically? What problem is it going to tackle? What results do you want to achieve with your thesis? Write it down on a piece of paper.

Knowing your target will help you aim better and achieve your goals.

Define Some Milestones

After writing down well-established goals, it’s time to divide them into milestones. In the case of writing a dissertation, your milestones might be:

• writing a dissertation proposal
• doing research
• making an outline
• writing a dissertation
• editing and proofreading

That way, you will have a clear structure that won’t seem so overwhelming. More importantly, these mini-goals are practically actionable steps you need to take to accomplish your objective.

Make sure you also write down milestones these because according to a study by psychologist Gail Matthews people who write down their goals, are 33% more successful in accomplishing them than those who only formulate wishes in their heads.

Create a Task List

Milestones are still big steps, so you need to break them further. Therefore, make a list of specific tasks necessary to achieve each milestone. Begin with the first one and take your time to complete every segment.

Write precise, actionable tasks that start with a verb. Specific language helps you understand what you need to do in order to complete a certain assignment, but at the same time it lets you know when that assignment is finished.

For instance, for a dissertation proposal you need to:

• Choose a theme
• Choose a title
• Structure of the proposal

Since the last task is a little bit vague, you can break it further:

• Write objectives
• Write potential outcomes
• Choose methodology

Prepare Everything You Need

The key to success is good preparation. Hence, before getting down to business, think about all the things you might need along the way.

Preparing adequately for each task and getting the necessary support will save you time because you will be ready to roll up your sleeves right away. There won’t be setbacks that would squander your precious time.

Try to anticipate what you need to complete every task, from practical things to professional help, and ensure you have them in the time of need.

Set a Timeline

Once you establish a list of tasks and prepare the ground for the work, it’s time to set a timeline for their execution. It will help you prioritize your assignments and create a system that will work.

For instance, you can do your dissertation research before purchasing or getting needed books, so you will decide when are you going to buy the necessary material and for how long you are going to do the research.

A timeframe is crucial for spending your time efficiently and juggling all the tasks in perfect balance.

Work on Your Goal

Even though you broke down your goal into actionable steps, sometimes that’s not enough. There is a little voice in your hand that keeps making excuses for not working and giving you reasonable reasons to procrastinate.

Smart Goals for College Students

College should challenge you in a number of new and rewarding ways, from broadening your experience with unfamiliar classes to expanding your horizons intellectually. Yet with all these new challenges, it's also important to develop the skills you need to be able to cope with stress, a hectic schedule, and impending deadlines. Learning how to set realistic, productive goals for yourself throughout each term can help you stay on top of things and make the most of your education.

Below are six smart goals for college students, as well as some criteria for setting new goals for yourself.

Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals

One of the most important things about setting goals while you're in school is that each one needs to be distinct, achievable, and rewarding in order to keep you moving forward. Before you set any major goals for yourself, try to ensure they meet the following criteria.

• Specific – Know exactly what you need to accomplish and what you hope to gain from doing so, whether it's simply finishing a paper, writing a personal statement for an internship or scholarship application, or finishing some research for a larger project.
• Measurable – Make sure you can easily evaluate whether or not your goal was met and how beneficial it ultimately was to you.
• Achievable – Be realistic when setting goals. This can help you avoid missing deadlines and getting behind, as well as giving you a more accurate overview of how much time you have to invest in other tasks throughout the week.
• Results-Focused – Have very clear, distinct outcomes for meeting your goals, and hold yourself to them.
• Time-Bound – Set a deadline for each goal or, for more complex tasks with multiple steps, establish deadlines for each major stage of the process.

Set a Goal for Grades in Each Class

While you always want to strive to do your best in every class, there are a number of factors that may impact how you're able to do from course to course. First, take into account the subject matter, the level of the class (is it an introductory 100-level or a more advanced 300 or 400-level?), how essential the course is to your degree program and the other courses you're taking during the same term. Then set a realistic goal for the grade you think you can earn if you work hard, and invest a reasonable amount of time working toward this goal. Some courses are just harder, or more relevant to your intended career path, than others, and setting a specific grade goal can help you prioritize effectively.

Plan Homework/Study Times for Every Course

At the beginning of the term, try to plan out specific time blocks for each class throughout the week, and hold yourself accountable for spending these time periods completing homework and studying. If something comes up and you're unable to devote the usual time to a course one week, make sure you can reschedule the entire block of time for that class to another day (which can help prevent you from getting behind or missing an assignment).

If you have trouble making good use of study time you set aside for a specific class, consider rescheduling your study block for this course at another time when you're more productive. You may also set specific goals for each study block week-by-week, such as not stopping or moving onto your next task until a particular section of a book is read, or the assignment for the week is finished.

Visit With Each Instructor at Least Once Per Term

This one can be helpful even if you're taking online or remote courses. Visiting an instructor during office hours or scheduling some time to talk over the phone or through email can be a good way to get to know someone who may be a great resource down the road. Instructors who know you well can speak to your strengths in recommendation letters, and it's always good to have someone to go to for help and support during especially difficult periods like during finals or when you're approaching graduation. Try to get to know at least one instructor well during each term, and make sure to take some time to speak personally with each one at some point.

Take an Extra Challenging Course

Look for courses that interest you outside your degree program or current area of focus, and try to challenge yourself to move out of your comfort zone. While there may not be time to do this every session, you can calculate how many elective credits you need to take and then set aside a certain number of these for challenging unfamiliar courses. Pushing yourself to try something new can be a great way to keep yourself intellectually engaged, especially during sessions where your coursework is otherwise focused on general education credits or basic introductory classes in your degree program.

Join an Extracurricular Group or Organization

Getting an on-campus job or joining a student group (which you can also do when taking online classes) can be a great way to get to know other students - and sometimes faculty - in your degree program. While this offers valuable networking opportunities for when you eventually go on the job market, it can also be a great way to reduce stress and allow yourself to take much-needed breaks from studying and work. Just remember, you still need to make sure you have time and energy to invest in coursework, so try to set goals for what days you can spend on extracurriculars and how much time you can set aside for activities.

Visit the Career Services Department

Even if you're still in your first year, learning about your career options can be a valuable experience. Set aside some time to speak with someone from the career services department each year, and consider scheduling more frequent appointments the closer you get to graduation. Setting specific goals to visit each term can help avoid procrastination and ensure you start planning ahead.

Nutrition education:

Nutritional problems broadly fall into two categories, i.e. those resulting from insufficient intake relative to nutritional needs and those resulting from the excessive and unbalanced intake of food or a particular dietary component. The main problems in Africa and elsewhere in developing countries pertaining to the first group. One of the principal aims of nutrition education must, therefore, be to provide people in rural and urban areas with adequate information, skills, and motivation to procure and to consume appropriate diets. Such education should cover the improvement of family food supplies and the more efficient utilization of available food and economic resources to provide nutritious diets and better care for the most vulnerable groups. For those richer sectors of society where diseases of affluence are taking an increasing toll, nutrition education should be directed to proper food selection, consumption, and lifestyle.

Nutrition education programs should have at least three components that should be directed at the various social groups.

Increasing the nutrition knowledge and awareness of the public and of policy-makers. This can be achieved by providing information on the relationship between diet and health; the relationship between nutritional and health status and individual productivity and national development; the nutritional needs of the population and of individuals; the importance of ensuring the quality and safety of the food supply; the causes and consequences of nutritional disorders; and the benefits of food labeling and legislation.

Promoting desirable food behavior and nutritional practices. This can be achieved by providing information on the nutritional value of foods; the components of an adequate diet; making appropriate food choices and purchases from available resources; hygienic food preparation and handling of food; storage, processing and preservation of food; and equitable intrahousehold food distribution according to the nutritional needs of family members.

Increasing the diversity and quantity of family food supplies. This can be achieved by providing information on methods of improving food production; crop selection and diversification; proper storage, preservation and processing; conservation of nutrients during food preparation; and the prevention of food waste.

Each of these components makes a special contribution to nutritional improvement. All three are important and need to form part of nutrition education and training programs for personnel in agriculture, education, and health in African countries. At the community level, the people affected by nutritional problems should participate in determining which components should receive the most emphasis to bring about lasting improvements in local food and nutrition conditions.

Goal and purposes of nutrition education

Household food security, as discussed in previous chapters, is a prerequisite for people to have an adequate and balanced food intake. However, to attain good health and nutritional status, people also need sufficient knowledge and skills to grow, purchase, process, prepare, eat and feed to their families a variety of foods, in the right quantities and combinations. This requires a basic knowledge of what constitutes a nutritious diet and how people can best meet their nutritional needs from available resources. Undesirable food habits and nutrition-related practices, which are often based on insufficient knowledge, traditions, and taboos or poor understanding of the relationship between diet and health, can adversely affect nutritional status. However, people can adopt healthier diets and improve their nutritional well-being by changing their food and nutrition attitudes, knowledge, and practices, if sufficient motivation is provided to do so.

The goal of nutrition education is to reinforce specific nutrition-related practices or behaviors to change habits that contribute to poor health; this is done by creating motivation for change among people, to establish desirable food and nutrition behavior for promotion and protection of good health. People are given help to learn new information about nutrition and to develop the attitudes, skills, and confidence that they need to improve their nutrition practices.

Nutrition education provides people with correct information on the nutritional value of foods, food quality, and safety, methods of preservation, processing, and handling, food preparation, and eating to help them make the best choice of foods for an adequate diet. The provision of correct information is not in itself a sufficient objective to improve nutrition. Successful nutrition education goes beyond the simple accumulation of knowledge, towards positive action. A change in behavior leading to desirable nutrition practices could include, for example, beginning to grow and eat dark-green, orange and yellow fruits, and vegetables to protect the body from infectious diseases or learning how to store maize or other food more safely to reduce nutrient losses and thereby increase household food reserves. Effective nutrition education programs must, therefore, be planned and executed in such a way as to motivate beneficiaries to develop skills and confidence for the adoption of positive and lasting practices.

Successful nutrition education often entails the active participation of the people, their awareness of their nutrition problems, and their willingness to change. To be effective, a comprehensive nutrition education program also requires intersectoral collaboration among different professionals (in agriculture, education, health, and communication) and should be based on a well-planned communication strategy, often using a multimedia approach. It has been shown that in addition to technical assistance, contributing factors to the success of a program include strong political and government support, external funding, and the strengthening of local managerial and community capacities.

Nutrition education programs will not work in situations of severe resource constraints. For example, advising people on the establishment of home gardens in drought-prone areas is inappropriate if facilities for irrigation do not exist. Similarly, it is inappropriate to teach a mother to give her child high-energy foods to which she has no access.

The sections that follow discuss the advantages and limitations of different approaches towards nutrition education, including conventional and current methods; the content; and key features that contribute to the success of nutrition education programs.

Nutrition education approaches

For the past 20 years, there has been intense debate on the strategies, objectives, and methods of nutrition education. Conventional education methods consisted mainly of talks given at health centers. Today this approach is considered largely ineffective unless it is fully integrated into a broader nutrition education strategy. The conventional method has largely given way to approaches based on modern communication sciences.

Conventional approach

A review of nutrition education programs in developing countries (Cerqueira, 1990) concluded that many nutrition education efforts implemented during the 1970s and early 1980s brought few changes in nutrition-related behavior or nutritional status. Program failure can be attributed largely to the ineffective communication methods used and the inappropriate content of the messages, which often ignored the specific cultural context of the community.

Most nutrition education activities have been implemented within the health sector, especially in primary health care. Conventional strategies for education focused on face-to-face contact with the patient, using didactic methods of education and one-way transfer of information. Nutrition messages were considered as a treatment, like medicine, for curing a nutrition problem. Within this context, nutritional science, rather than the concerns of the participants, dictated the content of nutrition education. Common examples of this approach are telling mothers to eat more green vegetables or to breastfeed their children and teaching the three food groups in health clinics.

Current approaches

More recent experiences, in contrast with the conventional approach, show that nutrition education is concerned not only with imparting knowledge but also with finding ways to work with individuals or groups in the community in a systematic manner that will stimulate their participation in and commitment to the learning process. Nutrition education undertaken in this spirit is interactive, encourages an exchange of information between the educator and the community, and empowers people to make appropriate choices using both scientific and local knowledge. Moreover, it leads to the adoption of improved behavior and contributes to lasting effects and changes.

Social marketing approach. Social marketing is defined as the promotion of socially responsible products, behavior, and ideas. It is based on strategies to change human behavior through the application of commercial marketing principles. Consumer research is used to identify the cultural norms, aspirations, and needs of the target group, and then specific messages are designed to promote changes in attitudes and behavior believed to be socially beneficial to the individual or the target community. Social marketing has contributed substantially to the development of modern communication approaches in the past 20 years.

At the heart of social marketing, philosophy is the belief that consumer decisions involve choices among alternative behavior patterns. The alternatives vary in the benefits that they offer and the sacrifices that they entail. For each set of alternatives (e.g. breastfeeding versus bottle-feeding) the consumer will weigh the perceived benefits against the costs, in terms of economic assets, time, energy, or personal and social value. The challenge for the social educator is to imagine himself or herself in the position of the focus group (e.g. a group of mothers, schoolchildren, or teenage girls) or individuals in order to understand more fully how to make the proposed behavior more attractive than any competing alternatives.

The planning and implementation of a social marketing nutrition education program follow an accepted pattern in which an initial field investigation is used to assess the current nutrition situation and the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of consumers on, for example, infant feeding practices. The emphasis on community-oriented information then helps to determine the specific needs and expectations of the community or the target audience. As a second step, the information is used to construct and produce receiver-oriented messages. The messages are then used to promote a few key behavior changes within a chosen population group, with the locally available resources and the cultural context taken into consideration.

Selecting the channels of communication to deliver a message is the third step. The combined use of interpersonal communication and mass media (radio, television, and the printed press) is often synergistic and can help in the attainment of different objectives. The mass media can bring new ideas to large audiences, encourage favorable attitudes, and generate support among opinion leaders. Interpersonal communication can provide the intimate, interactive contact with clients necessary for final habit change.

Community-based approach. Evidence from different countries shows that combining interpersonal programs at the community level with the support of the mass media is the most effective way to educate people. It is increasingly recognized that unless people are offered the opportunity to participate actively in seeking solutions for their nutritional problems, the long-term impact of the intervention will be marginal.