Lesson 3 The Learner and Instructional Design
3-2 Writing Learning Objectives
Learning objectives are brief descriptions of specific tasks a learner completing the course or lesson will be able to do. They should be succinctly expressed using clear action verbs. Explicitly defining the learning objectives of your e-learning program is useful for three main reasons.
First, if you establish from the beginning of the design process what you want your end-users to be able to do at the end of the course, it will help you to keep your design and content on track and aligned with the assessments (what you’ll use to ensure learners have met objectives).
Second, it will give you something to show to stakeholders to make sure everyone is on the same page about what abilities are needed to solve the identified problem.
Third, listing the learning objectives up front for users can help with the ARCS elements above: getting attention, establishing relevance, and ensuring confidence by making very clear what will be learned and what will be assessed.
Measurable Objectives
Objectives should be observable or overt. Can you see a student ‘know’? Can you see a student ‘understand’? Goals beginning with verbs like ‘know’, ‘learn’, or ‘understand’ are called covert because they can’t be observed directly. How will you measure the students’ knowledge? How will they show you that they have learned a concept?
When writing learning objectives, identify the covert skill and write an objective that tells what directly measurable behavior you will use as an acceptable indicator of that understanding or knowledge. Your objectives will then clearly and specifically tell students what they will be expected to be able to do once they’ve successfully completed the course or lesson.
| Covert Skill | Measurable Behavior |
|---|---|
| Know how to use Excel | Create a pivot table in Excel |
| Understand a Gantt chart | Identify the elements of a Gantt chart |
Tips:
- Begin your list of objectives with the phrase, “After successfully completing this [lesson/course], you will be able to:”
- Use as a reference a list of action verbs based on Bloom’s Taxonomy
- Align your objectives and assessments. Make sure that each objective is something you will directly measure with some form of assessment, and that each performance assessment is reflected in the objectives.
Practical Example
Let’s look at the learning objectives for this week:
After successfully completing this lesson, you will be able to:
- analyze examples of e-learning to identify the learning implications of design decisions about content structuring and learner motivation;
- demonstrate, by reference to examples, the differences between content-centered and learning-centered design;
- identify what is unique about adult learners and how e-learning design can be driven by this awareness; and
- integrate the principles of adult learning into an online learning program.
Are these learning objectives concrete? Can these objectives be measured by a task the learner has to perform? Keep in mind as you develop learning objectives for your e-learning that you will be asking your learners to do more than just “understand” the content or skills you are presenting.
⭐Shar’s Note: It takes practice to write good learning objectives. You can spot poor objectives when they do not align with the content provided or what the learner is doing. Take a moment now and draft a learning objective for your e-learning project. In course 2, you’ll have another opportunity to practice writing learning objectives.
By the way, I think four objectives for a week’s work of learning is too many. If it’s a longer amount of learning (like a school term) I think that five to seven objectives is about right. I did not write this course, and although I do update the course, the objectives are strict parts of the curriculum that must stay consistent by program directive. 🤓