Are Your Course Objectives Measurable?

At Clarkson University, you may be given a syllabus with course objectives or you may be allowed to create your own. Either way be sure to confirm that the objectives are BOTH measurable and use action verbs.

 In order for an objective to be measurable, it must begin with a measurable action verb. Measurable action verbs describe tasks that you can clearly evaluate. For example, most of the time you can evaluate a student creating, solving, and describing something, however it would be more difficult to clearly evaluate a student understanding or knowing something.

Example:

This 5 minute Quality Matters Standard 2 video explains all about writing both measurable course objectives and learning module objectives. 

        Bloom's Taxonomy Digital Planning Verbs

A Bloom's Taxonomy verb list can be very helpful for writing measurable objectives that are written from the student perspective to meet QM Standard 2 as described in the video. 

Tip: If your current objectives use verbs that are not measurable, like "understand" or "know", ask yourself, how would my students show me that they understand or know this concept or information?

See the TLC website page Course Design & Development.