Writing Measurable, Student-Centered Objectives

The Key Destinations

Trail systems are designed around destinations worth reaching, and each destination tells the hikers where they are in the park and how far they’ve come. Without clear destinations, the routes can make hikers wander aimlessly, leaving them confused and exhausted. OER architects design destinations, too, in the form of measurable, student-centered learning objectives – those learning destinations worth reaching. Objectives are the first layer of mapping the learning route. In this chapter, you’ll create learning objectives that will provide destinations for your learners, guiding them through your OER.

Every great trail design starts with a destination in mind.

Why This Matters

Clear destinations reduce ambiguity and help your learners know where to focus their effort. Research on goal clarity shows that students engage more deeply when they understand what they’re working toward.^[1] Since course outcomes are by nature written with a broad view, they do not give enough detail to help clarify what the specific learning destinations are or what – specifically and practically – our learners need to be able to do at those destinations. Instead, we will use or create measurable, student-centered learning objectives to serve as our “destinations”.

The Value of Measurable Objectives to OER Architects

Measurable objectives also serve the OER architect. They give us

• A clear picture of what our students will need to do with that content…but also what content we need to provide for our learners.
• Clear destinations for our learners…but also a clarified scope for our writing.
• Clear assessment measurements for our students…but also clear choices for assessing and evaluating our learners.

Adapting Your Learning Objectives

If your course(s) for which the OER will be used is already built, you will likely already have a list of objectives for each week or module of work within the course. These can be adapted to fit your OER’s learning objectives. These module-level or weekly objectives should align with and support the course outcomes, be more specific, and be written from the point of view of the student.

Creating Your Learning Objectives

If you do not yet have learning objectives, you will need to create a list of objectives for your OER. They should state what the learners should be able to do by the end of the chapter and should align with course outcomes, if available. The following sections will guide you through adapting existing learning objectives or creating new ones.

Step 1: Ensure Your Objectives are Measurable

In order for objectives to be useful and assessable, they must be measurable. This means your learning objectives should begin with an action verb that can be measured. 

Step 2: Ensure Objectives Are Written from the Student’s Perspective

Too often, learning objectives are written from the instructor’s point of view, focusing on what the teacher plans to cover or emphasize rather than what the student will actively do or demonstrate. Reframing objectives from the student’s perspective keeps learners at the center of the design process, aligning with inclusive, learner-centered practices. It makes it clear what is expected from the student and – for the OER architect – it ensures that every part of the OER is purposefully built to help students reach the outcomes.

Your learning objectives should complete a sentence that begins with “By the end of this chapter/section, students will be able to…” By beginning your learning objective with this simple sentence starter, your student is automatically centered, and their action upon which they will be measured naturally follows.

Step 3: Ensure Your Objectives Are Singular

Nested Objectives – objectives that contain more than one action within them – can complicate the designing of your OER. Ensuring you “unnest” your objectives before you try to map your content and assessments can save you loads of time and frustration down the road and help clarify expectations for your students.

Take a few minutes to look through the slides below. You’ll find out what exactly “nested objectives” are, why they are troublesome, and how to easily fix them.

Your Turn: Placing Your Destinations (Learning Objectives)

Now it’s time to place your destinations (learning objectives) in your map. If you are using the OERFSJ Mapping Spreadsheet [Website], follow the steps for adding your learning objectives below. Keep in mind it may take a bit of time to list all of the objectives for an entire course(s)-worth’s OER.

• Select Option A if you’ve already completed Column A and B.
• Select Option B if you are starting with Column C.

Option A

Select the arrow to see steps for Option A

Step 3

In column C, list measurable learning objectives covered in each of the corresponding sections/chapters in column A and B. All of the content and assessments map will align with these learning objectives, so don’t rush or skip this step!

Option B

Select the arrow to see steps for Option B

Step 1 – List your objectives.

In column C, list your measurable learning objectives, one per cell. Once you’ve listed them all, rearrange them in the logical sequence that learners should reach them.  All of the content and assessments map align with the learning objectives, so don’t rush or skip this step!

Step 2 – Organize the objectives by topic.

Review the Learning Objectives in Column C. Ask yourself the following question: “What topics need to be covered in the OER for students to be able to achieve this objective?”

• • • Type these topics into Column B next to each learning objective. As you go through the objectives, adding topics, you may see that several objectives fall under the same or similar topics.
    • These topics will likely become your chapter’s sections in your OER.

Don’t worry too much over names of the sections right now – you can always tweak those later.

Step 3 – Group into Chapters.

Now that you have your learning objectives grouped by topic, decide which topics can be grouped into each chapter.

• • • Look through the list of topics in column B. Which topics would work well together in a chapter?
    • In the Chapters column A, give each topic the name of a chapter under which that topic falls. There will likely be several topics that fall under the same chapter. Don’t worry about choosing the perfect chapter name just yet. You can keep thinking and perfecting chapter names as you create the OER.

You now have chapter titles with several sections and clear objectives for each section.

Feeling uncertain about this task? Practice finding topics for objectives and chapters for topics in this low-stakes activity below.

 

Select the arrow to see a completed map.

 

Your Turn: Assign an Author

If you are working with a team to co-author your OER, it is essential to communicate early and often. Though you may not be ready to start writing or adapting, deciding who will author which chapter will allow authors to begin planning the content of their assigned chapter and the flexibility to start when they are ready.

As a team, discuss who will author which chapters in your OER and add the name of the team member responsible for each chapter in column D of your Table of Contents.

If you are a solo author, you can delete column D.

Congratulations! You have mapped out your Table of Contents, setting key destinations for your learners. Next, you will plan the trail markers for each destination – the assessments.