Instructional Goals and Objectives

      As a student I am familiar with instructional objectives that my instructors give me within the course syllabus at the beginning of the semesters. I have chance to know where I am going and what is expected to me. In a more professional manner, what are instructional objectives? " A learning objective is a statement that specifies in behavioral (measurable) terms what a learner will be able to do as a result of instruction. It describes the intended outcome of your instruction rather than a description or summary of your content. It is but one of several steps that should be followed when developing instruction. Instructional objectives provide both you and your students with section direction. " (Morrison, 2004, p.1)  Sharing instructional objectives with the students is important, because when we shared instructional objectives with them, number of things happen; 1.)Better instruction occurs 2.)More efficient learning results 3.)Better evaluation occurs 4.)Students become self-evaluators.
      Instructional objectives can come from numerous sources such as textbooks and syllbi, Internet and state and national standards. Also, there are some important points for giving instructional objectives. They must be student-oriented, not a teacher-oriented. For example; "Teacher will teach present perfect tense" is not a good instructional objective. Instead of this "Students will be able to use present perfect tense by producing 100% grammatically correct sentences" is overtly student-oriented and effective instructional objective. Additionally, instructional objective must be clear, understandable and observable. Key to an observable objectives is an observable verbs such as describe, use, list etc. Bloom's taxonomy verbs list can help us to write clear instructional objectives.

Furthermore, there are three simple steps for writing effective instructional objectives. These are; specify the general goals, break down the goals into more specific, observable objectives and Check objectives for clarity and appropriateness. A final check of your work may save you the embarrassment of trying to explain your students what it was that you really meant to say.
And what is more? Well-defined instructional objectives can help us to focus our planning, planning effective instructional events and planning valid evaluation procedures. The process of writing instructional objectives force us to decide, out of all the material to be covered.  Also, well defined instructional objectives can be a great help to us and our students during the teaching process.