Learning Objectives a Practical Overview Form

Instructions and help about Learning Objectives A Practical Overview

Every syllabus should have three main components: goals, objectives, and learning outcomes. We may even use these words in our assignments and activities. These three terms often accompany one another, but what do they mean and how do they differ? We can think of these as encircling categories. GOALS are the largest category, usually relating to the larger aims such as critical thinking, transfer of content, or creativity. We lay out OBJECTIVES within these GOALS as a map of the actions we will need to achieve those goals, such as specific instruction covered, case studies analyzed, and texts discussed. If OBJECTIVES are what an instructor puts into the course and plans for achieving the course goals, the LEARNING OUTCOMES are what learners actually produce. They explain what students will be able to do because of the instruction, analysis, or discussion. Instructors assess student learning through these outcomes, therefore learning outcomes must be measurable and observable. In short