Guidance on Aims and Objectives for Teaching and Learning
1. Introduction
This paper is concerned with the definition of aims and objectives for teaching and learning; that is with the prior specification of what teachers intend to teach or what it is hoped learners will learn. The paper also discusses important links between objectives and assessment.
2. Reasons for Stating Aims and Objectives
The statement of educational aims and objectives has several benefits:
To help teachers design the course - the content, the methods, and the assessment;
To communicate the educational intent of the course to students and to colleagues;
To help identify the resources needed to undertake the teaching;
To provide a basis for evaluating the course, and a basis for quality assurance.
A further reason for setting out aims and objectives is that SHEFC's Teaching Quality Assessment is made with reference to provider's own statement of aims and objectives.
3. Aims, Objectives, and Learning Outcomes
These terms are used in a technical sense and it is important for all teaching staff to be aware of their meanings. Broadly speaking, all educational purposes can be defined in one of two ways:
(a) What it is intended that the teacher will do (an aim or a teacher-driven objective);
(b) What it is intended that the student will have learnt, or will be able to do, as a result of a learning experience, (an objective or learning outcome).
In the past, objectives have often been defined in terms of the teacher's activity; ie corresponding to definition (a) above. This is no longer adequate because teaching objectives need to be defined in terms of the ultimate purpose - student learning.
There is therefore now a broad agreement that for each teaching activity there should be two types of statement of intent:
The Aim
A brief statement setting out the intention in providing the degree programme or course in terms of the scope of the subject, and the overall learning outcomes sought.
Objectives (or intended learning outcomes)
A number of specific statements setting out what it is intended the student will have learnt or be able to do as a result of the educational experience.
4. A Hierarchy of Aims and Objectives
There are a number of circumstances in which aims and objectives can be specified. These are set out in Figure 1 in the form of hierarchy in which the higher levels (eg the degree programme) should determine the nature of the aims and objectives adopted for the lower level (eg a course). Or, to put the point in another way, the achievement of higher level aims will depend on achieving lower level aims. The key question to ask is: "How will the aim and objective for this individual teaching session help achieve the overall aim and objectives of the course?