On Lesson Objectives

Lesson learning objectives are clearly measurable statements of student performance that outline what you want students to know and understand after they complete a learning module. Lesson objectives can be further clarified through the use of assessment-specific rubrics.

Lesson objectives can be helpful:

For Faculty

• identify critical material for the module
• clarify, organize and prioritize materials
• help focus teaching activities
• help with evaluating teaching for course improvement

For Students

• provide a guide for learning specifics
• inform students what they are expected to accomplish in a lesson

Outcomes vs Objectives

Learning outcomes are a high level view of what the student will accomplish by the end of the course or unit. (e.g. Understand anthropological arguments.)

Lesson objectives are specific and target details for an individual course module. (e.g. Given a plain text citation list, students will be able to accurately format a MS Word document according to provided journal guidelines.)–

Technique

Though it can be broken down into simple parts, writing lesson objectives requires much thought and consideration. Once the desired outcomes are known, the objectives can be written by considering the following concerns and answering key questions:

1. Performance – Answer: What do I want students to be able to do? (must be measurable, use action verbs)
2. Condition – Answer: What are the important conditions or constraints under which I want them to perform? (can include tools)
3. Criteria – Answer: How well must students perform for me to be satisfied?
4. Learner – Answer: Who will be performing? (often left implied as ‘the student’)

Examples

BAD: Student will appreciate the structural components of an architectural design.

BETTER: Correctly using the basic vocabulary of architecture and architectural history (criteria), students (learner) will identify, describe and compare (performance) the functional components of the structural design examples from this lesson (condition).

BAD: Students will understand the protagonist’s motives.

BETTER: After reading The King (condition), students (learner) will critique the protagonist’s motives (performance), using 3 of 5 critical points discussed in class (criteria).

Resources

RadioJames Objectives Builder Tool