V: Objectives

Instructional objectives differ from goals. While a goal is a broad statement of the designed outcome of a lesson, an objective gives specific steps to define what a learner should know and be able to do as a result of the instruction.

Bloom's Taxonomy
Objectives should be written using a variety of learning domains. Initial learning objectives should use lower level skills, with subsequent objectives building on those basics. Eventually, students should be asked to use higher-level thinking skills. Below is a list of the steps of Bloom's taxonomy and some sample verbs to use as part of the learning objectives.

1. Knowledge: identify, label, list, match, define
2. Comprehension: demonstrate, illustrate, summarize, explain
3. Application: choose, select, show, apply, produce
4. Analysis: distinguish, compare, contrast, research, analyze
5. Synthesis: compose, construct, create, design, develop
6. Evaluation: justify, evaluate, prioritize, argue, decide

Hints:
It is sometimes easier to think of objectives as learning targets. Each objective is a target that students should learn as a result of the learning tasks. For even more personalized instruction, learning targets should be written as "I can" statements. Students can even monitor their own progress of their ability to perform each learning target, prior to summative assessment. With the implementation of learning targets, it is often unnecessary to provide additional test review and study guides, because students are already aware of exactly what they will be expected to do on the test.