Writing Lesson Objectives that produce results
Following our August Workshop, which you can re-watch by clicking on the yellow button below, take a look at the activities on this page to continue your learning on the topic. If you want to develop your teaching practice even further then take our Planning Lessons to Reach All Learners course.
Activity 1
As we explored, learning objectives need to connect to previous, current and future learning. Here is a downloadable image to help you remember:
Activity 2
In ‘Outstanding Formative Assessment’ (2014), Shirley Clarke provides key questions that help you, as a teacher, maintain focus when writing lesson objectives:
- What do I want students to learn?
- How do I put it into words?
- What would be a good way of learning it?
- What does an excellent finished product look like?
Answering these questions should make your lesson objectives more precise! By the end of the lesson, you need to know, ‘have my class learnt what I taught them?’
Using active verbs in your learning objectives helps to achieve this. Verbs such as “identify”, “find,” or “explain” are easier to measure than non-specific verbs such as “understand”, ‘know’ or “be aware of”.
These active verbs are examples of SMART words. This downloadable poster reminds you what ‘SMART’ stands for and provides more words that you can include when writing a lesson objective that produces results:
If you want to develop your teaching practice even further then take our Planning Lessons to Reach All Learners course.
