One of the learning goals for this sample scenario can be:
• Develop ability of using critical thinking to evaluate and reason your subject of learning in your tertiary education.
Notice that the above learning goal is not measurable and not clearly observable either. It is a generic and overall aim of the course/project. Now, it is up to the ID to determine whether this learning goal demands to be a topic or a course or a series of courses based on the content and level of details involved.
The learning objectives for this learning goal can be something like this.
By the end of this course as an academic student you will be able to:
• Define and clearly articulate the concept of critical thinking.
• Recognize the benefits of critical thinking.
• Identify all the five essential dimensions of critical thinking.
• List and define all the eight elements of reasoning and intellectual standards.
• Apply critical thinking to analyze the logic and reason the subject of your study.
Notice that the above learning objectives are specific, measurable and also observable. Again, it is up to the ID to decide whether each of these objectives will represent a sub-topic or a topic or a course. However, the content, audience and the level of the learning would also heavily influence this decision.
A learning objective often has four parts - action verb, condition/s, criteria (standards) and audience.
In the above example, notice that the condition is defined in the stem sentence because the conditions for evaluation will be same for all the learning objectives.
Similarly, since the audience is same for all the objectives, I defined that also in the stem sentence. However, it may not be the same case every time.
Criteria/standard is a part of the learning objective that measures and evaluates aspects such as ‘how often’ or ‘how well’ or ‘how much’ a learner must be able to perform the task learned in the course.
The action verb is a very critical and determining factor of a learning objective. You would choose an appropriate action verb based on two factors:
1. The domain of educational activity (ex: cognitive or affective or psychomotor) and
2. The level of learning in the specific domain (ex: Knowledge or Comprehension of Cognitive, Receiving of Affective domain).
In the above example since the objective chosen are from knowledge and comprehension levels respectively of cognitive domain, the action verbs define and identify are used. You can learn more about the three domains and levels in each of them here: Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains.
Although there are many benefits of writing clear, effective and explicit learning objectives, these would fundamentally help:
• you to clarify what you want learners to accomplish.
• you communicate expectations to students more effectively.
• you to select methods, materials and assignments that are most appropriate.
I would like to conclude this post with a small quote by John McDonald “A set definite objective must be established if we are to accomplish anything in a big way”.
