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Aims are general statements concerning the overall goals, ends or intentions of teaching.
Objectives are the individual stages that learners must achieve on the way in order to reach
these goals.
Example a teacher might have an aim that a learner should be able to save work on a
computer. To achieve this aim a series of objectives must be met. eg to create a folder,
navigate between menus, save a document.
Aims and objectives can form hierarchical structures so that in complex curricula aims at
one level might be seen as objectives at another.
Learning objectives are aimed at the three domains of learning: knowledge, skills and
attitudes.
If you dont use objectives, how can you build in assessing of learning (what would you
assess?) and how can you measure if your teaching is being effective and learners are
learning? The objectives you set help you plan, clarify and prioritise the learning.
What do you want your learners to be able to DO after they have learned something that you
have taught (bear in mind students may learn many things with you but use judgment to
focus on the most important outcomes at this stage in their course)
So the aims and objectives for one possible teaching sequence might look like the following:
Aims:
Objectives:
Objectives do not include the word 'know' or 'understand'. They do include active verbs such
as 'state', 'explain', 'outline', 'list' or 'describe'. They are statements of what you want your
learners to do.
The following lists contains examples of verbs which describe the sorts of things you want
your students to be able to do and may help you to write useful learning objectives.
Knowledge
Skills
Attitudes
For example, simple objectives might be to list or state facts. More challenging objectives
might ask learners to apply or use knowledge in a particular context. Higher levels of
objectives ask learners to solve complex problem. This might involve gathering information,
researching and analysing, or using knowledge to create something in a difference context
(e.g. use knowledge of making apple pie to design a different filling)
Labelling something already created, or choosing from options is less challenging than
creating your own list, or drawing your own diagram.
Objectives can be altered by degree e.g. demonstrating 5 ways to multiply 2 digit numbers is
more challenging than modelling one way of multiplying.