Describe what students will do, not what you will cover. “Introduce anticoagulants” is a teaching plan. “Explain how warfarin and heparin differ in onset and monitoring” is a learning objective. Write every objective from the student’s side, as something they will be able to do by the end that they couldn’t do at the start.
Start with one verb you could watch someone do. You can’t see a student “understand”, “know” or “appreciate” something. You can see them explain it, calculate it, compare two options or justify a decision. If you can’t picture how you’d check the objective in a quiz, a task or an observation, the verb is too vague. Use one verb per objective. “Identify and evaluate” is two objectives, and they belong at different levels.
Match the verb to the level you actually want. Taxonomies such as Bloom’s and SOLO are a ladder of demand, from recalling and explaining up to analysing, evaluating and creating. A first-year session should spend most of its time on the lower rungs, with a step up at the end. A final-year or postgraduate unit should live mostly at the top. Check the spread of your set: six objectives that all start with “describe” won’t stretch anyone, and six that all start with “evaluate” will lose a first-year class.
Add the condition and the standard when they matter. The ABCD form names the Audience, the Behaviour, the Condition and the Degree: “Given a simulated patient chart (condition), second-year nursing students (audience) will calculate an intravenous infusion rate (behaviour) to two decimal places with no errors (degree).” Not every objective needs all four parts. But when a skill must be done to a standard, or with particular resources, saying so makes the objective far easier to teach and to assess fairly.
Keep the set small and focused. Three to six objectives is plenty for one session, and a unit rarely needs more than eight learning outcomes. If you have more, some are probably steps towards others or content in disguise. Fewer, sharper objectives make it clearer to students what matters and make your assessment easier to design.
Align everything to the objectives. This is constructive alignment: the objective, the learning activity and the assessment should all ask for the same performance at the same level. If an objective says “evaluate” but the exam only asks students to list, the students will learn to list. For each objective, ask how you’ll assess it and what students will do in class to practise it. If you can’t answer, rewrite the objective or change the activity.
Make session objectives build towards unit outcomes. Session objectives are smaller steps on the way to the unit’s learning outcomes. Each one should support a unit outcome, and across the unit the sessions should cover every outcome at the level it’s written at. When accreditation bodies or professional standards apply, name the relevant competency where it helps students and reviewers see the link, but don’t let the standard’s wording replace a clear, measurable statement.
Share them with students and use them. Objectives only help learning when students see them and come back to them. Show them at the start of a session, refer to them as you move between activities, and close by asking students which ones they feel confident about. Students who know what they’re aiming for take more responsibility for getting there.
Treat AI-written objectives as a draft. An AI can produce well-formed, measurable objectives quickly, but it doesn’t know your students, your timetable or your accreditation requirements. Check that each objective is achievable in the time you have, fits your unit’s outcomes, and is something you will actually teach and assess. Then edit it until it does.