2c. Some more guidelines on formulating learning objectives

Course subject(s) 2. Constructing well-formulated learning objectives

1. Describe learning objectives from the perspective of the students, not from the perspective of the lecturer.

  •           Students are able to describe the relevance of …
  •          In this course we’ll give a description of the relevance of …

 

2. Describe the learning objective, not the learning activity. 

  •           Students are able to apply theory x to problem y.
  •           Students will practice to apply theory x to problem y.

3. Describe the learning objectives in generic terms that go beyond the scope of the course.

  •          Students are able to perform procedure z on a case.
  •           Students are able to perform procedure z on the case given during the exam in week 6.

 

4. Describe learning objectives in a way that is indisputable.

  •             Students can indicate strengths and weaknesses of their own design.
  •             Students can create an inspiring design.

 

The following is a checklist that you can use when formulating learning objectives. It contains the key conditions and guidelines discussed before.

Creative Commons License
Development of Teaching and Active Learning by TU Delft OpenCourseWare is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ocw.tudelft.nl/courses/development-teaching-active-learning/.
Back to top