Learning objectives as a tool to guide post-Covid learning

Covid left many university students with heightened stress and a sense of disconnection, according to US and UK studies. To address the difficulties of post-Covid learning, instructors can use specific learning objectives to help students actively participate in their education. Specific learning objectives – a statement of the skills or competencies that the instructor intends for students to master for a given lesson or unit – are a critical tool for instructors to promote student learning. These objectives allow students to better understand what skills they should develop in each lesson and can spark greater reflection and self-regulated learning in students, where they plan, monitor and evaluate their own learning. 

However, many instructors may not share the learning objectives with students or they may not have them at all. Here, we provide a step-by-step guide for instructors on writing and using specific learning objectives.  

Ensure that the course learning outcomes support the broader curriculum

First, instructors should ensure that their course has a list of broader course learning outcomes, which are statements that indicate what competencies and skills the course will develop in students throughout the term. Instructors should then evaluate how their course’s learning outcomes fit into the broader programme. Instructors can review their programme’s curricula map to ensure that their course’s learning outcomes build upon those of any prerequisite courses and adequately support those of more advanced courses. 

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Similarly, we encourage instructors to check their respective disciplinary societies and education communities for any national standards for the discipline that may shape the course’s learning outcomes, as well as educational resources for instructors.

Explain learning objectives with clear, actionable verbs that align with course outcomes

Following this, instructors should make explicit specific learning objectives that use actionable, measurable tasks and are aligned with the course learning outcomes. For example, for a biology lesson on mutations, an instructor may have a learning objective of “students will be able to classify different types of mutations”, while an African political science instructor may have an objective of “students will be able to critically evaluate the role of different non-governmental organisations in shaping the development of African countries”. 

These specific learning objectives can help students to identify what skills they should be working on during class, encourage student reflections on their own learning during and after class and provide a more structured way for students to review material when studying for a course. These examples of learning objectives showcase the use of actionable, measurable verbs (for example, “evaluate” or “classify”). Instructors should avoid general words such as “understanding” a topic, since our past work has found no consensus about what it means to “understand" a topic. Similarly, instructors should avoid words like “appreciate” that may not be clearly measurable. Instead, they should use specific verbs (such as “identify”, “compare”, “evaluate” or “define”) that will likely be more helpful to students and instructors. 

In addition, specific learning objectives should be aligned with the course’s learning outcomes, meaning that each objective should represent the development of a particular skill or competency highlighted within a course learning outcome. Once instructors have developed their specific learning objectives, they should check which course learning outcomes each objective supports and adjust accordingly.

Communicate learning objectives with students frequently

We encourage instructors to communicate specific learning objectives with students frequently. Instructors can include the objectives at the beginning of the class’ slides or post them on a learning management system to communicate them before a lesson. Similarly, we encourage instructors to share the specific learning objectives again at the end of a unit, where they can use the objectives to recap the skills and competencies that students should have now developed. Instructors may also wish to remind students of which objectives they will be assessed on prior to a given assessment.

Align assessments and activities with specific learning objectives 

Once they have written their learning objectives, instructors should align classroom activities with each objective. So, a biology instructor could develop a case study where students learn about mutations and practise classifying mutations in a gene, then the instructor includes practice questions where students assess their knowledge of this learning objective. 

Following this, instructors should design assessments that measure students’ mastery of each learning objective. For instance, the instructor could include an exam question where biology students classify mutations. Next, instructors should use this data from the assessments to identify any misconceptions or places where students may not have mastered the learning objective and refine their teaching accordingly.

Guide students to reflect on their learning using specific objectives 

Instructors can prompt students to reflect on their own learning after they complete an assessment. This can also reference specific learning objectives. For instance, instructors could develop an “exam wrapper” – an assignment that students complete after an instructor returns a graded assessment to them – that asks students to identify which specific learning objectives they felt most and least confident about when completing the assessment and to identify ways to strengthen their learning in areas where they struggled. 

Other reflection questions could ask students to identify what steps they took to study using the learning objectives and suggest study strategies centred around learning objectives (for example, identifying past assessment questions aligned with each learning objective and then coming up with new questions).

Jeremy Hsu is assistant professor of biology at Schmid College of Science and Technology at Chapman University.