Once we’ve gotten our North Star, our own goals for our course and program, we can begin to clarify course or program objectives. So, if you are creating training for a business, what do you need your employees to learn? If you are creating a course for a school or college, what are the learning objectives for your course? If you are building courses to sell online for personal development — what do you hope student will walk away with?
A USEFUL WAY TO WORK THROUGH THIS QUESTION IS TO:
- Imagine your dream student. This person wants to learn your material and has a good reason to do so. He or she is engaged and ready to go.
- What will this person take away from your class? What will they learn that will serve them now, and in the future? Try to be down to earth and realistic about this. . Let’s aim for teaching them what they want and need to learn in the hopes that you can help them reach a goal.
- Write down the student outcomes you’ve just clarified.
- Write down the specifics a student would need to learn to reach that outcome.
- These are your course objectives. This is what your student will walk away with. We will move backward from here to make the form of your course meet the function (your objectives) that you have defined here.