Writing Behavioral Objectives
An objective is a clear and unambiguous description of your educational expectations for students. When written in behavioral terms, an objective will include three components: student behavior, conditions of performance, and performance criteria.
Objectives are written in order to provide a map of where you want to go with a course or an individual lesson, and provide evidence that you actually reached the objective. You wouldn't get in the car and simply start driving without knowing where you intended to go. You would never know if you got there.
When you teach, you have a mental picture of the objectives for the course, but you may not have put it down in writing in the syllabus. Below are several resources for writing behavioral objectives.
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The Basics -
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How to Write Effective Behavioral Objectives - This is a good description of the components as well as the rational for including each in the objectives you write.
Samples and Criteria - Want to see how this all comes together? At this site you will find examples of how all three components are systematically included in the writing of the objectives.
Northwest
Link - Here are some additional examples of behavioral objectives
that might provide some additional clarity to the process.
As you may have noticed, the objectives you have been looking at often
refer to Bloom's Taxonomy. If
you are not familiar with Bloom, check out the following resources:
Bloom's Levels Defined - This is a PDF document highlighting the six basic levels of Bloom along with the action verbs that generally are associated with that level. It is a good place to start if you are looking for verbs for your own objectives.
University of Washington Resources - Washington has a site with the basic components of Bloom's work, along with multiple links to other sites about Bloom.
Office Port - At this site you will see a brief commentary on Bloom's work, along with another list of verbs suitable for use in writing objectives.