Speaker 1: Hi everyone. This short presentation will provide you with some key points to consider when writing your course objectives. By the end of this presentation, you will be able to define the term measurable objective and list key questions to consider when writing measurable objectives that are significant to student learning. When we talk about objectives in higher education, we are referencing learning aims that are more specific than goals and not quite as specific as outcomes. This helpful pyramid scheme from DePaul University demonstrates this. Objectives signify the future or intended learning that students will demonstrate by the end of a course. When we talk about measurable objectives, we are referencing the observable action that students will demonstrate in their learning processes. So we need to tie an action verb to our objective, which will make it both measurable and observable. See for example Bloom's Taxonomy for a list of action verbs. This image, created by Vanderbilt Center for Teaching, demonstrates the six progressive levels of learning in Bloom's. For this objective, the verb analyze indicates that the objective is measurable because students will be able to demonstrate mastery of the objective through a demonstrated analysis, which the instructor will observe or assess. Notice that we don't yet know how a student will demonstrate their learning. This is defined in the aligned outcome, which is tied to the assignment. We just talked about Bloom's Taxonomy and the use of action verbs to write a measurable objective. One of the most common mistakes when writing a measurable objective is using a verb that isn't measurable. A non-measurable verb that is frequently used in this case is the verb to understand, which isn't measurable because it's not observable. To understand something indicates a thought, not an action, and we can't observe thoughts, which is a good thing, right? So make sure to avoid the verb understand as well as other non-measurable verbs when you write your objectives. So what should we be thinking about when we are writing our objectives? As we just discussed, objectives signify the learning that will be taking place in our courses. When thinking about this intended learning, here are a few questions to consider when writing your course objectives. DThink asks us to think about what we want students to learn specifically that will still be with them years later. This is the lifelong learning approach. Let's consider my objective again. I want students to specifically learn about social movements in the United States through a sociocultural lens. The next question you can ask yourself is, what level of learning do you want to use for your objective? For this objective, I want learners to draw connections and distinctions between social movements. This is level 4 in the Bloom's Pyramid feature just two slides ago. The next question you can ask yourself is, what measurable verb will you use? The verb analyze fits the bill for my objective. In this case, analyze is the fourth level and the verb that I want to use for this objective. As a recommended practice, use one level of learning per objective. This is demonstrated here through the word analyze. You can always align an assignment to multiple objectives if you want students to demonstrate different levels of learning in a single assignment. Notice also that this objective starts with learner's will. This signifies the future learning that will take place in your course. We can also see that this objective is aligned with the larger goal of intercultural knowledge. For more information on alignment, see our companion video on Goals, Objectives, and Outcomes. And for those interested in additional information related to this slide and the previous slide, see Arizona State University's blog post titled Writing Measurable Learning Objectives from July 2, 2012.