Lesson 3: Planning Webinar Instruction
4. Writing Learning Objectives
4.2. Four Steps for Writing Learning Objectives
Next, we'll use four steps to write learning objectives for this lesson's instructional goal.
Technical subject matter experts will be able to plan a learner-centered webinar on their chosen topic using guidelines for writing a goal statement and learning objectives.
Step 1: Start with a stem sentence.
Step 2: Determine the learning outcome.
In this step, you describe what learners must be able to do to demonstrate the successful accomplishment of the instructional goal.
You may want to do some brainstorming to help with this step. Write down everything you think someone needs to do to achieve the goal and eliminate unnecessary ones. It may even be helpful to invite others who know about the topic to participate in your brainstorming.
Two learning outcomes were identified as necessary for achieving the instructional goal:
- write an instructional goal statement
- write learning objectives
Step 3: Consult Bloom's Wheel to select the appropriate level and verb.
This is where it gets a little nitpicky. When consulting Bloom's Taxonomy, the verb 'write' is displayed in the Remember category. However, writing an instructional goal statement and learning objectives is not just about remembering. A learner will need to apply what they know about them to write one correctly. So technically, a better verb would be 'construct,' which can be found in the Apply category.
- Construct an instructional goal statement
- Construct learning objectives
Step 4: Write the verb and learning outcome into a statement that, when combined with the stem, forms a complete sentence.
After completing this webinar, students will be able to:
- Construct an instructional goal statement
- Construct learning objectives
Don't worry. You do not need to be an expert in writing learning objectives to design your webinar. The purpose of writing them is to make you think about what your learners will be able to do when they have completed your webinar. The value of consulting
Bloom's taxonomy is that it makes you think about what it will take for them to be successful. You can then use this information to help you decide what and how you are going to teach them to do it.
To see how complex writing learning objectives can be, take a look at the objectives identified for the online Lustre tutorial used for some of the examples in this course - Lustre Performance Objectives. You will also see how these objectives have been aligned to a post-test used to assess learning in the course. This gives you an idea of how learning objectives are used to guide the development of your instructional materials.