The IDEAL: Intellectual Skills

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Icon of section IDEAL (Instructional Designer's Evolution through Analytical Learning)- Creative Agni ezine.

 

Intellectual Skills

Robert M. Gagné classified the outcomes of all learning processes into 5 types.

Intellectual Skills – Explanation and Illustration

While all the five types mentioned above are important for humans to utilize their full potential, I believe that the intellectual skills are the ones that drive the scientific development of any community. In saying this, I don’t deny the importance of the other four, nor do I say that these five can be packed into airtight compartments.

Here’s our opinionated Ms. Coffeebeans with her opinion on the types of learning outcomes by Gagné.

Instructional Design Humor - Cartoon pup Coffeebeans is unhappy about the uneven division of Gagne's learning outcome types - between humans and dogs.

What are Intellectual Skills?
Intellectual skills are those skills that enable us to so something. For instance, they help us solve problems and make decisions. These skills require us to apply rules to achieve a specific end.

Here are some learning outcomes that illustrate the intellectual skills:

  • Calculate the roots of the equation 3×2 + 32x – 8 = 0
  • Identify the three most important causes of rising unemployment in the US.
  • Design a viable structure for the Lokpal.
  • Given the symptoms, diagnose the illness.

As you can see, Intellectual Skills, Cognitive Strategy, and Verbal Information; they all pertain to the cognitive domain, and they are interlinked. It’s not possible to master the intellectual skills without drawing support from Cognitive Strategy and Verbal Information.

Reflection Activity:

  • Create a list of 10 learning objectives. Review them to select those that can be classified as Intellectual Skills.