Each week, the Top Tip from Monday’s briefing will be posted in the newsletter. This week’s Top Tip was ‘Ten things you need to know about learning objectives. Here they are:
Ten things you need to remember about learning objectives:
1. They should be short – and simple for students to understand
2. Question the students – do they understand them?
3. Measurable – can you and more importantly the students measure their progress against an objective? (If you find it difficult, they won’t be able to.)
4. Differentiated – for different abilities and current working-at levels. Be careful about using ‘all, most, some,’ – it shouldn’t be seen as an opt-out for some students who aim only for the ‘all’ objective. The students need to understand that everyone is ultimately aiming for the ‘some’ objective. This is where staggered objectives are important. (instead of using ‘Most, All, Some’ you could use GCSE grades or levels if appropriate or simply number them ‘1,2,3’ – as long as the students can see how they relate to each other.
5. Staggered – are the objectives built around the same core objective and therefore allow the students to make progress ‘through’ the objectives?
e.g.
– To identify causes of the Cold War.
– To explain causes of the Cold War.
– To make a judgement about which causes of the Cold War were more important.
6. Timeframe – are the objectives for part of the lesson, all of it, or maybe will stand for a series of lessons?
7. Bloom’s Taxonomy – are you using action words in your objectives? (e.g. define, describe, evaluate rather than know, appreciate or understand). See Bloom’s Taxonomy wheel and Bloom’s Taxonomy Buster for further examples:
8. Stickers – use stickers to save the students time and get your lesson moving. You can print them using the attached template:
9. Visible – will the students see the objectives in some form during the course of the lesson? – If not, it will be a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’? If they are there, you can generate a ‘discourse about learning’ (Dylan William)
10. Progress grids – consider progress grids to break up your objectives and focus the students on making progress through staggered objectives. An example of which is here:
HItler consolidation of power progress chart
Learning and Teaching at Abbot Beyne 
