How to Write Effective Learning Objectives?

Quite simple, isn’t it? As a matter of fact, the productive delivery of information and expected learning outcomes are based on effective learning objectives. Experts in education and pedagogy develop structured plans for both educators and learners, providing clear directions and expectations. Learning objectives are not just a to-do list for classroom implementation; they cover a broader concept of what the learner will take from the lesson. This article will explore the importance of setting goals, define the benefits of writing learning objectives, and look through some practical steps and frameworks to create them.

What are Learning Objectives?

Learning objectives clearly describe what learners should know or be able to do after completing a course or program. For example, will the student attending an essay writing course be able to develop an impressive essay for university admission? Or, will the driving lessons ensure learners pass an exam and get their licenses? To put it simply, learning objectives are focused on the student’s abilities and results rather than the teacher's intentions. Whether you are a face-to-face learner or a user of online learning platforms, the learning objectives - as targets for instruction and assessment - are crucial for achieving success in your training initiatives.

Importance of Writing Learning Objectives

The ability to write learning objectives underlies every lesson, course, or program as a key component in the development of a successful learning experience. From the student's point of view, learning objectives provide focus and clarity about what to expect from the learning process; on the other hand, by reviewing the course content over and over again, a teacher gets a clearer picture of necessary changes, adjustments, or improvements. Another important point is evaluation, which includes both the assessment of the learner’s progress and the ability of the learner to make judgments about the effectiveness of an idea or a situation. Finally, clearly defined objectives promote motivation for learners as they introduce the step-by-step path to achieving success.

Benefits of Creating Learning Objectives

When a teacher classifies learning objectives, they automatically acquire a guide to the right selection of lesson content, teaching strategies, and purposeful support of the learning process. Students, in turn, benefit by seeing a detailed picture of where the course will take them and what to expect as a result. Regular reference to the learning objectives helps lead and monitor their learning journey. The benefits of learning objectives can be easily understood by a well-proven SMART model, which stands for:

• Specific: not broad, but conclusive content 

• Measurable: allows observation and evaluation of changes in the learner’s progress

• Achievable: learning objectives should reflect the students’ skill level

• Result-oriented: the results are primary, while the process is secondary

• Time-bound: timeline setting helps track and decide the level of competence upon course completion.

And even though some experts claim SMART is outdated, some principles will always be a priority. Learning objectives are the cornerstone of peer-to-peer learning, as they provide clear guidance, encourage collaboration, and motivate students. 

How to Write Learning Objectives

The effectiveness of learning objections is about how well you identify the desired outcome. It is a form of art that covers attention to detail, recognition of the target audience, and concentration on measurability. Here are some useful tips that will help navigate the process of creating and writing learning objectives to boost learning-teaching productivity:

Identify the Level of Knowledge

The initial point is to identify the desired or expected outcomes for the learner - is it the attitude, skills, or knowledge (use the ASK acronym to memorize it easier) you want them to achieve at the end of the course? The attitude objective is the hardest since we have to deal with feelings, emotions, and attitude crafting. A typical example of this is the development of an appreciation for cultural diversity in the workplace. Next is the objective of the skill, which focuses on the tasks that the learner will be able to perform during the learning process. Training designed for customer service staff is a good example of a skill-centered objective. Last but not least is the knowledge objective, which comprises all the expertise gained during the course or a program and the level of their understanding and future implementation, for example, awareness of safety rules, sales policy, etc.  

Select an Action Verb

An action verb is used to describe the expected behavior at a certain level of the learning process. It’s worth mentioning that each level should have a single action verb that can be measured. Use specific verbs instead of vague ones. Attitude verbs include “analyze”, “believe”, “support”, “evaluate”, etc. Skill action verbs are “adjust”, “develop”, “process”, "remove,” and many others. Knowledge verbs can be “describe”, “explain”, “specify”, “tell” or “write”. 

Create Your Objective

Now that the first two steps have been completed, it is time to combine the selected action verb with the level of knowledge you want to achieve. Being specific and straightforward is the key here. For instance, if you conduct training on note-taking in education, the following objective will sound good: "By the end of this module, learners will be able to use effective note-taking strategies to capture and retain key information from learning content."

Check Your Objective

As we have learned above, using SMART criteria will help you set “smart” learning objectives. Alongside this, specialists recommend implementing a four-component approach when crafting an objective. This approach is often referred to as an ABCD method and includes audience, behavior, condition, and degree of mastery. Let’s check it on our example and visually understand how works: "By the end of this module (condition), learners (audience) will be able to use effective note-taking strategies (behavior) to capture and retain key information from the learning content (degree of mastery)."

Repeat for Each Objective

A single objective will hardly be enough to cover the overall program or course. So create multiple learning objectives to address different aspects and levels of the content. Objectives are the so-called checkpoints that lead to goal completion by ensuring a comprehensive and effective learning experience.

Learning Objectives vs Learning Outcomes

Both learning objectives and learning outcomes advise the learner what to expect from a course and how this course will impact their skills and knowledge. Even though these two concepts are often used as interchanging terms, there is a notable difference between them. We say “objective” to emphasize the need for a learner to know what will one get from the course or program. Learning objectives allow us to acknowledge how suitable the subject course is and understand if it goes in line with our requirements and expectations. If the objective doesn’t suit, we may consider it time-consuming and useless. Learning outcomes, in turn, directly disclose what the learner will have or achieve upon program completion. While learning objectives describe what the instructor aims to teach, learning outcomes focus on what the learners will learn. Properly structured learning objectives and outcomes are essential either for a full education program or for microlearning modules to promote a clear picture of inclusiveness.  

Using Bloom's Taxonomy to Write Learning Objectives

Named after Benjamin Bloom, an American educational psychologist, Bloom's Taxonomy is a hierarchical classification of cognitive skills that provides teachers with a common language for discussion and exchange of learning and assessment methods. It displays how lower-level skills can be incorporated into larger-scale educational goals. Let’s take a brief journey through the levels of the pyramid from the top to the bottom:

Create

“Creating”, at its highest level, is about generating new ideas or products by putting elements together and building a functional whole. Objectives might include "planning an experiment" or "writing a short story on a concept."

Evaluate

Here we use certain criteria or standards to "evaluate," which, by performing judgments, should be supported by checked arguments. Objectives could be "deciding on one’s attitude towards an author or a theory" or "assessing the effectiveness of various approaches."

Analyze

For "analyzing," we usually break down information into parts to get an idea about its structure, or we can examine a concept from different perspectives. Here learning objectives can include "comparing different viewpoints" or "identifying relationships between meanings."

Apply

At this stage, we can already use or implement the information in real-world situations. "Practicing a math problem or a task using a specific method" is an appropriate objective for this level.

Understand

If we "understand," then we can explain a certain idea and fill it with meaning through interpreting, summarizing, classifying, etc. This skill plays a significant role in cross-functional collaboration, where proper comprehension from all parties involved is the key. Objectives might be “explaining the causes of a historical event” or “writing a summary on a course”.

Remember

At the top level, "remember" involves recalling facts or basic information like names, dates, formulas, or methods. Objectives could include “listing the steps of a process” or “recalling key historical dates.”

Impacts of Setting Learning Objectives

Setting clear learning objectives has a profound impact on classroom education and student achievement. According to studies, learners who were offered objectives performed better on new material than those who did without one. This can be explained by the fact that learning objectives focus students’ attention on the key information thus leading to increasing their engagement and motivation. Clear learning objectives help teachers create assessments to evaluate the intended learning outcomes, while students are more likely to achieve success by following step-by-step targets. 

Conclusion

As you can assume, even perfectly written learning objectives can be useless if they don’t relate to the educational content and activities. By leveraging the offered models and relevant action verbs, it is possible to make the most of the learning objectives, which is essential for enhancing both teaching and learning experiences. Students become more attentive to detail, engage in the learning process, and improve their academic performance, while educators develop their understanding of the subject matter due to effective learning objectives.