Writing, Revising and Updating Learning Objectives

I typically take time during the Summer to brush up on my Professional Development and I also spend time prepping the courses I will be teaching in the upcoming semester. If you are also going to be engaging in some course prep this Summer, one thing I would recommend including as a part of your course revisions is to spend some time looking at your course learning objectives. 

Most faculty will not have to create their learning objectives from scratch because these are typically already drafted by a Curriculum Committee of some sort, but whether your objectives have already been provided to you or not, you should spend some time reviewing them (or creating them) and also identifying exactly how you are measuring them in your course. For instance, do you have an assessment strategy or assignment that measures each of your course objectives? If not, now is the time to start working on those. 

Additionally, I would also encourage you to develop weekly or Module-level objectives as well. This means that you would have objectives for every topic you will be teaching in your course. This will make it easier to develop or revise any weekly assignments you have. Again, you want to be sure that you have some way to measure each of these objectives as well. It is important for adult learners to understand why they are doing what they are doing and the reasoning behind each assignment they are given. Providing students with assignments that are closely aligned with their learning objectives makes it clearer to them why they are engaging in these activities.

A great resource you can use to help with writing, revising or updating your learning objectives is from the Iowa State University Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. They provide a great overview of what learning objectives are and how to write them. They also include various examples of well written objectives and video instruction of how to develop them.

Why not share your Learning Objective development journey with us in The Online Educator Facebook Group by clicking the link HERE. Also, as a treat don’t forget to GRAB YOUR FREE GUIDE to the 3 Secrets to Teaching Online Successfully.