• provide an overview of goals and learning objectives
• discriminate between goals and learning objectives
• create new goal(s) for your lesson
• beware of criteria for writing basic performance objectives
• recognize the elements of a performance objective
• Identify changes between pre and post test results
  
  

Overview

The necessary first step in designing a lesson is to determine the lesson goals. Learning goals are general aims of the lesson, the overarching broad outcomes that have to be realized by students. To determine the goals of a lesson, it is necessary to ask, what will my students learn? Performance objectives are derived from these general lesson goals keeping in mind the question, what will my students be able to perform at the end of this lesson? Performance objectives are focused and specific outcomes we expect from students. A clear cut understanding of the lesson goals and performance objectives will provide students with the blueprint of the lesson.

So why are goals and performance objectives so important?

As mentioned above, while well written, lesson goals and performance objectives turn into the blueprint of the lesson guiding the student in learning and mastering the materials. Not only does it serve as a guide to the student but also to the instructor in properly planning and adequately emphasizing the lesson parts to suit the needs of the student. Defining learning goals is a thought-provoking and often time consuming exercise. It involves the collective efforts of many within an institution to determine a curriculum’s goals and objectives. Once created, these goals and objectives will drive assessment and other learning activities within the lesson/curriculum. Setting out to teach a course without a well planned list of goals and learning objectives can be akin to navigating a ship without a compass or directions.

Am I ready to write my goals and objectives?

Writing a program’s learning goals as mentioned above is a collective effort of several people within an institution. Many times stakeholders, practice community and others within the community are involved in determining the program’s goals. While developing goals, particular attention is paid to consider a wide range of cognitive skills. The Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Skills is often used to ensure that goals are comprehensive and varied enough. This unit on Goals and performance objectives will introduce you to the differences between goals and performance objectives, increase awareness of criteria for writing basic performance objectives, create performance objectives for the proposed lesson and with guidance, review a current learning objective to ensure it includes all necessary elements. Please review this article.

Learning Activity #1:
Review the Goal/Performance Objective worksheet and complete goals for your lesson. Complete the goals section of the worksheet.

Before we jump into learning or performance objectives, let's first test your knowledge. Here you will be presented with 10 statements. From existing knowledge, indicate whether these statements are considered acceptable/valid learning objectives. Click here to take the pretest. You will be presented with a score.

Introduction to Learning Objectives

While goals are broad statements that cover the lesson, learning objectives are specific measurable, short-term, observable student behaviors. The purpose of objectives is not to constrain creativity but to assist both the instructor and the student to focus their energies on the learning and teaching at hand. Written well, these objectives become the path towards the lesson goals. Often in academic settings and in this unit, the term performance objective will be used interchangeably with the term learning objectives.

So, how do we write clear, valid performance objectives for our lesson?
View this narrated presentation on the Basic Performance Objectives. After viewing this presentation, review the Performance Objectives Action Verb handout that will assist you in writing your lesson performance objectives.

Learning Activity #2:
Now that you are aware of the required elements that make up a performance objective, take a post-test of the same 10 statements from the pre-test and identify if the performance objectives you reviewed are accurate/valid statements. Do they contain all the necessary elements of performance objective? Compare your scores to see if you have gained insight about well written performance objectives from your previous attempt at the pre-test.

In addition, write the performance objectives for your lesson and complete the performance objective section of the Goal/Performance Objective worksheet. Submit the completed worksheet using the Assignment tool. An ETA instructional designer will provide you with individual feedback on this submission.

End of Unit 2.1