A lesson objective is not simply a sentence of decoration at the top of a plan. It’s a choice that prevents the lesson from going in too many places. If it’s crystal-clear, it informs your explanation, the type of activity, the type of checking question, and how to close the lesson. If the objective is muddy, learners may leave unsure of what they actually practiced, even if they’ve had a busy lesson.
A weak lesson objective is usually something like “Students will understand the topic,” “Learners will improve their skills,” or “Class will learn about communication.” These statements sound nice and educational, but they do not drive instructional planning. You cannot easily create a warm-up activity, guided practice activity, or review question if they aren’t clear on the type of performance we expect from learners. A strong objective highlights a learner performance such as identifying, explaining, comparing, selecting, correcting, or doing something related to the lesson content.
If I wanted to create a short lesson about giving feedback, a weak objective is “Learners will understand feedback.” This objective gives me too much flexibility. I can teach learners the meaning of feedback. However, a strong objective might be, “Learners will revise vague feedback by rewriting it as feedback focused on one aspect of the task.” This stronger lesson objective provides direction and structure: I can explain how feedback can be vague or focused, use sample learner feedback and task assignments to show a variety of feedback types, and guide practice with feedback revisions. The review question can be specific about whether each revision relates to the task as opposed to the person.
A quick test to determine the quality of an objective: One way to test an objective is to ask, “What will I look for at the end of the lesson?” “Learners will understand pacing” is very difficult to see. “Learners will plot a timeline with a warm-up activity, core teaching activity, and review activities” is easier to check. Does a good lesson objective guarantee that the learner received quality teaching? No. Does it provide a clear focus for a lesson? Yes. It helps you resist the temptation of tacking in an exciting but off-topic activity just because it seemed useful. If an activity does not help learners reach the objective, it probably belongs in another lesson.
Good lesson objective also protects novices from trying to explain everything. Teacher training students, new tutors, and teaching assistants are all very eager to ensure they cover all the key aspects of the topic. This frequently leads to long explanations followed by little opportunity for learners to do anything in response. Having a more narrowly focused lesson objective gives teachers confidence to ignore the topics that are not part of that objective. If a lesson’s objective is for learners to create one effective checking question, I don’t need to cover all types of formative assessment. I can explain one purpose, provide two examples of effective and ineffective examples, guide learners to develop one question, and review if that question is likely to reveal any confusion during teaching.
Before I plan out all parts of the lesson, I write a single sentence about the type of learner performance I expect at the end. “Learners will break a broad topic into three smaller teaching steps.” For each portion of my lesson, I think about whether the warm-up helps learners with the stated objective, the explanation clearly describes the skill being practiced, the guided practice has them practice with some support, and the independent practice or closing review provides clear evidence of learners’ performance.
When my lesson objective works well, I don’t have to answer my lesson planning questions because the lesson objective already answers them. It lets me know when my explanation is too long, an activity is too tangential, or a closing activity is too vague. It also gives clear focus for my reflective notes after the lesson. Rather than say “The lesson seemed to go okay,” I can write, “Learners successfully selected an appropriate teaching strategy. A few had difficulties narrowing their choices. I should have asked more checking questions throughout the guided practice.” That one sentence about performance is no longer just a sentence about the objective. It is the focus point for all of the instructional decisions that follow.