Module 4: Planning for Learning - Those Obnoxious Objectives

There is so much made of objectives, they are sometimes perceived as a nuisance. Faculty members giving a lecture pretty much know what the lecture will contain and how it will be presented, especially if the lecture has been previously presented. The same can be said of planning a course, a book chapter, a teaching case or an article.

The artist begins with a blank canvas and transmits through the brush and the paints his/her interpretation of a scene or an object or creates form and color from the mind's eye. Sometimes it looks to us like the artist had no idea what he/she was going to paint, but critics of the art look at form, color, texture and composition--interpreting the artist's objectives.

Teaching effectiveness is determined by the performance of the learners as well as the performance of the teacher. The content, methods of teaching, and evaluation of performance are based on the objectives.