This document provides an overview of how to write effective learning objectives for online courses. It discusses key elements such as making objectives student-centered, identifying component skills, using action verbs, and making objectives observable or measurable. The document also covers how to design learning activities, such as questions, hints, and targeted feedback, that help students master the objectives. The goal is to guide instructors in creating clear objectives and activities that will help students learn and assess their progress.

1. June 2013
Learning Engineer/Project Manager
Mini OLI Authoring Training
Kim Larson

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Learning Objectives
By the end of this session, you will be able to…
• Write a student centered observable or measurable
learning objective
• Identify component skills that make up that objective
• Write a learning activity, that includes hints and targeted
feedback.

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The Course Design Triangle
Source: Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence
Carnegie Mellon
Instructional Activities
(low stakes assessments)
Objectives
Assessments
(High stakes)
Tasks that provide
feedback on students’
knowledge and skills
Descriptions of what students
should be able to do at the
end of the course
Contexts and activities that foster
students’ active engagement in
learning

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The Course Design Triangle
Source: Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence
Carnegie Mellon
Instructional Activities
(low stakes assessments)
Objectives
Assessments
(High stakes)
Tasks that provide
feedback on students’
knowledge and skills
Descriptions of what students
should be able to do at the
end of the course
Contexts and activities that foster
students’ active engagement in
learning

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Why Focus on Learning Objectives?
1. They communicate our intentions clearly to students and
to colleagues.
2. They provide a framework for selecting and organizing
course content.
3. They guide in decisions about assessment and
evaluation methods.
4. They provide a framework for selecting appropriate
teaching and learning activities.
5. They give students information for directing their
learning efforts and monitoring their own progress.
Based on A.H. Miller (1987), Course Design for University Lecturers. New York: Nichols Publishing.
Also see, C.I. Davidson & S. A. Ambrose (1994), The New Professor’s Handbook: A Guide to Teaching and Research in Engineering and Sciences. Bolton, MA:
Anker Publishing Company Inc.

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Four key elements to good learning
objectives:
1.student-centered
2.component skills/sub objectives
3.use action verbs
4.observable or measurable

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Four key elements to good learning
objectives:
Student-centered:
Learning objectives should be student-centered; for example, stated as
"Students should be able to _______.“
Component skills/sub objectives:
They should break down the task and focus on specific cognitive processes.
Many activities that faculty believe requires a single skill (for example, writing
or problem solving) actually involve a synthesis of many component skills.
Use action verbs:
Clear objectives should use action verbs that communicate to the students
the kind of intellectual effort we expect of them. Furthermore, using action
verbs reduces ambiguity in what it means to "understand."
Observable or measurable:
Clear objectives should be observable or measurable. We should be able to
easily check (that is, assess) whether students have mastered a skill (for
example, asking students to "state" a given theorem, "solve" a textbook
problem, or "identify" the appropriate principle).

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Student Centered
Remember, the real goal of a course is not for us to teach a
body of material but rather for students to learn it.
Therefore, learning objectives are most effective when they
specify our goals from the students’ point of view.

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Student Centered
The first key feature of a learning objective is that it expresses
what the student, not the teacher, will be doing. Look at the two
“objectives” below and ask yourself who would be accomplishing
each objective: the student or the teacher?
A. Apply two theories in social psychology to explain specific examples of
human behavior.
B. Introduce students to a range of theories in social psychology.
A describes what students will be able to do at the end of the course, it is a learning
objective.
B, however, indicates what the instructor wants to achieve and does not constitute a
learning objective.

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Component skills/sub objectives
They should break down the task and focus on specific
cognitive processes.
Many activities that faculty believe requires a single skill (for
example, writing or problem solving) actually involve a
synthesis of many component skills.

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Component skills/sub objectives
The objective often requires more of a synthesized activity that requires students to
be able to do a number of skills to show mastery of the objective.
For example, let's say you have a learning objective for an elementary algebra course
like this one:
Simplifying, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing polynomials.
The component skills would be something like this:
Combine like terms
Use order of operation
Use distributive property
You would expect that in their prior knowledge
they would already be able to:
Add
Subtract
Multiply
Divide

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Action verbs
Actions verbs help specify what you want students to be able to do.
By telling students what to do, we provide them with benchmarks by
which to assess their process--we inform them as to which tasks they
might use to monitor whether or not their performance of certain tasks is
up to par--metacognition.
As previously discussed, learning objectives both help students monitor
their own learning and also help students focus their energy
appropriately, and action verbs are also a big part of that contribute
significantly to both parts of that.
At the same time, action verbs enable instructors to focus on and clarify
the tasks we want to evaluate.

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Observable or measurable
Observable or measurable
Look at the two objectives below. Which one is observable?
A. Understand Newton’s Second Law
B. Explain Newton’s Second Law
Notice that A is not observable, while B is. An instructor can’t
directly witness a student’s understanding. However, she could
observe and evaluate a student’s explanation.
Observable. Avoid using words like “understand”, “comprehend”, or “appreciate”.
These are cognitive processes that take place in a student’s head and are
invisible to you. Instead, ask yourself: What would students have to do that would
show me that they understand X, comprehend Y, or appreciate Z?

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Different Kinds of Objectives
Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy identifies six levels of cognitive
processes. http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/RevisedBlooms1.html
Across these levels, knowledge is used in more
sophisticated ways:
▫ Recall: remember, recognize, identify
▫ Understand: interpret, exemplify, classify, summarize,
explain, compare
▫ Apply: execute, implement, use, carry out
▫ Analyze: differentiate, distinguish, organize, select
▫ Evaluate: check, critique, judge, monitor, test
▫ Create: generate, plan, produce, construct, hypothesize

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NOTE: Watch Out for Verbs that are
not Observable or Measurable
In order for an objective to give maximum structure to instruction, it
should be free of vague or ambiguous words or phrases. The following
lists notoriously ambiguous words or phrases which should be avoided
so that the intended outcome is concise and explicit.
WORDS TO AVOID:
Believe, Hear, Realize, Capacity, Intelligence, Recognize, Comprehend,
Know, See Conceptualize, Listen, Self-Actualize, Depth, Memorize, Think,
Experience, Perceive, Understand, Feel
PHRASES TO AVOID:
To Become: To Reduce: Appreciation for… Acquainted with… Anxiety
Attitude of… Adjusted to… Immaturity Awareness of… Capable of…
Insecurity Comprehension of… Cognizant of… Enjoyment of… Conscious
of… Feeling for… Familiar with… Interest in… Interested in… Knowledge
of… Knowledgeable about…. Understanding of… Self-Confident in.

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Create an objective
Create a basic objective at your table, try to choose something
that most people have domain expertise in. (It could be anything)
Then determine if there are component skills needed to for the
student to show mastery in the objective.
For example you could use something like hand signals for
driving:
OBJECTIVE:
Describe the hand signals for driving when electronic signals are
unavailable or not working in the US.
SUB SKILL
Identify the hand signal for making a right turn in the US

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Let’s check your objective.
Checklist: Is the objective…?
• Student centered (i.e., student should be able to…)
• Broken down into component skills (grain size)
• Phrased with an action verb
• Observable or Measurable

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The Course Design Triangle
Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence
Carnegie Mellon
Instructional Activities
Objectives
Assessments
Tasks that provide
feedback on students’
knowledge and skills
Descriptions of what students
should be able to do at the
end of the course
Contexts and activities that foster
students’ active engagement in
learning

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What would happen if there was a learning
objective with no activities?
All sorts of awful things
▫ Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies
▫ Rivers and seas boiling
▫ 40 years of darkness
▫ Human sacrifice
▫ Dogs and cats living together
▫ Mass Hysteria!
- Ghostbusters

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Learn By Doing
“Practice this material”
Scaffolded to give support “as needed” by providing tailored
hints and feedback.
Allow students to practice specific tasks and skills in a non-
threatening environment.
Learning Dashboard report student activity in an aggregate
format.

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Hints
Think about when a student is given task and they become
immediately stuck.
If the student asked you for help what would you say to
student to help them figure it out.
1st Hint is strategy for answering question:
▫ General restatement of goal: your goal is X, try strategy Y (the
strategy)
2nd Hint is cognitive:
▫ Mid-level (compare angle A-B-C to X-Y-Z)
3rd Hint is bottom out, give them the answer:
▫ Answer + explanation (the angle is 45 degrees)

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Hint 1: Example

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Hint 2: Example

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Hint 3: Example

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Feedback
Initial response, then short explanation.
▫ Not quite right. As you look at the histogram, notice that the
distribution is roughly symmetric.
▫ Correct. Since the distribution is symmetric, the mean and
median would be about the same.
▫ Incorrect. This data set is skewed and the Mean/SD are affected
by skew.
Appropriate distracters(answer choices):
▫ Reflect common misconceptions or errors,

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Feedback: Example

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Feedback: Example

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Feedback: Example

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Feedback: Example

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Create a learning activity for the
objective you wrote earlier
Think about a question you would ask students to determine
if they could master the objective. Then try to write hints and
targeted feedback for that question.
Let’s go back to our example.
I will take the sub skill:
Identify the hand signal for making a right turn in the US
Q1. Which is the correct way to hand signal making a right
turn when your vehicle does not have signal lights or has
damaged signal lights?

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Using distractors that address common
misconceptions.
Q1. Which is the correct way to hand signal making a right
turn when your vehicle does not have signal lights or has
damaged signal lights?
A. Put your left arm out of the left front window and point your
finger toward the right.
B. Open your right front window and reach over as far as you can
and put your hand out.
C. Extend your left upper-arm out to the left, horizontally and
angle your forearm vertically upward.

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Hints and targeted feedback
Q1. Which is the correct way to hand signal making a right turn
when your vehicle does not have signal lights or has damaged
signal lights?
Hints:
1. If you want to make a turn, think about what might be the safest and way to
convey that to other drivers and pedestrians.
2. You have to signal in a way that is visible to other drivers and pedestrian.
3. The correct answer is to extend your left upper arm out to the left, horizontally
and angel your forearm vertically.
Feedback:
A. Not quite right. While this may work it is not the universal signal in the US for
a right hand turn.
B. Incorrect. Reaching across the inside of the car to signal a turn is not a safe
way to operate your vehicle, and is not the correct way to signal.
C. Correct. This is the universal signal in the US to let other people know you
are taking a right hand turn.