3. Writing a Goal Statement

A goal statement is a broad statement describing the new skills, knowledge, or attitudes the learner will acquire from the instruction. This statement is important because it will guide all your design decisions.

A complete goal statement should include information about the following components:

  1. Who the learners are
  2. What the learners will be able to do
  3. The performance context in which the learners will apply the skills they learn
  4. The tools that will be available to the learners in the performance context

the word goal with an target and arrow replacing the letter o

A goal statement for this lesson could be : (the four components are indicated by the number in parenthesis)

Technical subject matter experts (1) will be able to plan a learner-centered webinar (2) on their chosen topic (3) using guidelines for writing a goal statement and learning objectives (4).

A goal statement for a webinar about the Lustre File System could be:

Computational scientists who are novice users of the Lustre File System will be able to use basic commands that enable parallel I/O in their computing application. They will have access to a high-performance computing system with a Lustre File System and documentation of basic Lustre commands.

Can you identify each of the four components in the statement above?

icon to indicate an activity


Write a goal statement for a webinar you would like to create. You will use it later in the course.