Objectives
What is a Learning Objective?
Our company specializes in the design and development of distance learning websites. Using the information provided by our clients, we first designate learning objectives that serve as the focus of all content development. As the University of Victoria explains here, these are standards which perform two major functions. First, they inform students of the knowledge and/or skills they must demonstrate to prove that they have learned from instruction, and second, they explain the purpose of assignments and activities within the instructional materials.Objectives for Distance Learning
According to our research, we find that distance learning students make great use of learning objectives as signposts. Distance learning students rely on the objectives to understand the purpose of assignments and content presented to them. Even when they are not being assessed, many students also opt to use learning objectives to figure out whether or not they understand the course material.Our Method of Writing Objectives
As the University of Virginia explains, objectives should be specific, address the audience directly, use action verbs (such as those listed here, courtesy Susan Wilkinson of San Jose State University), define how much the audience should learn to achieve course objectives, and match with what is required in assessment.In order to ensure that we clearly communicate course requirements and goals to learners, we utilize Bloom's Taxonomy to formulate learning objectives. The UK Centre for Legal Education provides a chart that demonstrates how Bloom's Taxonomy works. First, we start with what exactly the students should be able to achieve once they have taken a course. From there, the Taxonomy provides a list of ideal action verbs to use as a starting word when describing the course objectives. Then, the Taxonomy recommends a list of ways to phrase the requirement, followed by describing the content or conditions in which the learners are to accomplish the objective.