What are learning objectives?

As you dive into creating your first lesson, there’s a bit of a roadblock at learning objectives.  What are they? How do you word them? How do they help your students? Are they even necessary?

Short and sweet, learning objectives are 100% necessary for any course.  A well-written learning objective will help your students understand what they are expected to learn.  In a way, a learning objective is a goal that you set for the students that you will help them reach.

When you work on learning objectives, think about how your students will read them. Students can use learning objectives to help guide their study, prep for assessments and see if they can begin to connect the dots between objectives. It is absolutely necessary to write an objective that:

• Tells the student what they are going to learn
• Describes how the material will be applied
• Outlines how the objective will be assessed

If you cover those three main points and then make your learning objectives S.M.A.R.T., then your students will truly be set up for success.  S.M.A.R.T. learning objectives are:

Specific – who is going to do what action? This helps the student see their responsibilities and what you are going to teach them.  A Specific goal outlines the information, the assessment, the learner’s role and your role with the objective.

Measurable – how is the objective going to be assessed? If an objective cannot be measured with an assessment, or you don’t have a way to see student’s progress, then how can you help your students succeed?  Assessments, graded or ungraded, quizzes or handouts, all will help you see how your students are doing.

Attainable – Everyone wants their students to do an amazing job and reach the highest levels of understanding.  Make sure that when writing learning objectives, the objective has to be attainable for the students.  It’s important to build up learning objectives over time so that students can grow in their understanding.

Relevant – If you and your students are covering meditation and the learning objective tells students to enter a meditative state before they learn what meditation is, how is the learning objective relevant? The short answer is that it isn’t.  The learning objectives for each lesson must build students up to the ultimate goal otherwise relevance is lost.

Time-Bound – Every learning objective for a lesson needs to relate to that lesson alone.  There may be course objectives that will be accomplished by the end of the course.  However, the remainder of the objectives need to be limited to a few days or a week so that students can accomplish them.

Putting it all together: Once you have written out each part of the learning objective, it is time to put it all together. To help with action words and goals, we use Bloom’s Taxonomy which is a form of teaching people that many educators use.  We’ll have more on that in another post!

As long as your objectives are S.M.A.R.T., cover all elements of the lesson, and provide students with a track to follow, then you are good to go.  Your students will be able to determine what they need to study, how they are going to be assessed, and what their goals are for the course.

Implement: Write a new learning objective for your course with these pointers in mind.  Remember, they can be long when you are specific!