Week after week, year after year, students of all ages – infant to elderly \u2013 take their seat to engage in some form of Christian education. And at the end of each Sabbath school class or Bible study, we stand up, walk out, and more often than not, quickly forget most of what we were supposed to have learned during that past hour.<\/p>\n
Is the purpose of Christian education simply to expose people to the Bible and keep their interest so that they leave with a smile on their faces? Or is it something more life altering?<\/p>\n
A critical task in Christian education is to define success. That is, how will we know that a particular class has been successful? What about a quarter or an entire year? Have your students grown or learned something important as a direct result of your class? Or has their time merely been occupied?<\/p>\n
How do you know? Can you prove it?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n [bctt tweet=”A critical task in Christian education is to define success. – Amber Riggs”]<\/p>\n This is where instructional objectives<\/strong> enter the picture. An instructional objective<\/strong> is a statement that defines in specific, measurable terms what your students should be able to do<\/u><\/em> as a result of your instruction.[ref]Mager, R. (1997). Preparing instructional objectives<\/em>. Atlanta: The Center for Effective Performance, p. 3[\/ref]<\/p>\n In part 1<\/a>, we explored the way that well-written instructional objectives both define what success looks like in Christian Education and how these objectives can help us focus our instructional time so that we can fulfill what we set out to teach our students to do.<\/p>\n In this article, we\u2019ll explore three components of a well-written objective, examine how to avoid the most common mistakes people make when writing objectives, and try out our skills on a few case studies.<\/p>\n Performances<\/strong>, conditions,<\/strong> and criteria<\/strong> are the three components that can work together to clarify the specific intent of your objective.<\/p>\n The foundation of any well-written objective is a performance. First and foremost, the objective must define the specific action<\/em> or skill<\/em> that you want to observe in your students. For example, you might be teaching a group of 8-10-year-old students the books of the Bible. You\u2019ve identified the performance as:<\/p>\n The performance is \u201crecite the books of the Bible in order.\u201d However, you\u2019ve left out an important condition<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Conditions describe \u201cwhat the learner will be given, or deprived of, during performance of the objective.”[ref]Mager, p. 166[\/ref] If the students recite the books of the Bible as a group and each student has a spot where she gets stuck and relies on the group to help out, do they really know all of the books of the Bible? What if a student recites individually but needs a lot of prompts from you? Does he know them as well as you would like him to?\u00a0 What if we added a condition?<\/p>\n But wait\u2026 here comes Johnny up to recite the books of the Bible: \u201cGenesis, Exodus (5-second pause), Leviticus, Numbers (15-second pause), Deuteronomy (10-second pause)…\u201d At this rate, you could be there all day. And when you ask Johnny to look up a verse in Zephaniah, he is still going to find it faster by going to his Bible\u2019s table of contents.<\/p>\n This is a case where we would want to add a criterion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The criterion describes how well a student must do the action in order for their performance to be considered successful.[ref]Ibid.[\/ref]<\/p>\n The criterion can include any set of criteria that sets the bar for success. These commonly refer to particulars like speed (in 15 minutes), accuracy (90%), or quality (no misspelled words). You\u2019ll notice that on one of my objectives I included the words \u201cwith 75% accuracy.”<\/p>\n Including a criterion is especially important when you are communicating your objectives to a student who will be graded on how well they are expected to perform. For example, when you are taking a course, you\u2019ll often find the criterion separate from the objectives in the grading scale for a course.<\/p>\n You can include a criterion any time that you need to further clarify how a successful performance will look.<\/p>\n Hands-down, the most challenging part of writing an instructional objective is ensuring that your objective is measurable<\/strong> in that it is based on an observable performance<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The use of the following words will often indicate that an objective is un<\/em><\/strong>measurable: Value, know, appreciate, internalize, understand, grasp, enjoy, believe. These words are open to many interpretations and are difficult to connect with a specific action. On the contrary, these words are open to fewer interpretations and tend to facilitate specific actions: identify, write, list, describe, state, explain.[ref]Ibid, p. 45[\/ref]<\/p>\n Unless you are careful, this is just a pitfall waiting to happen. Here\u2019s what I mean-<\/p>\n I have four daughters, and I really want them to love going to Sabbath School class. I want them to look forward to it and I want my friends\u2019 kids to love Sabbath School, too! It would be so easy for me to write the following objectives:<\/p>\n As a result of this class, my students will\u2026<\/p>\n These are all very worthy and important goals, but as they are currently written they are worthless as instructional objectives. They have no use as objectives because they are unmeasurable<\/strong>. Why? Well, for example, let\u2019s consider developing \u201ca positive attitude towards Sabbath School\u201d. How can you know without any doubt that someone is \u201cdeveloping a positive attitude?\u201d Let\u2019s say that I make this one of my markers of success. I plan lots of fun activities for the entire quarter so that my students will enjoy Sabbath School. And then the last two weeks of the quarter, I wind up with a kid who doesn\u2019t want to come to class and then cries the entire class time. (Oh, and the other two start crying too just because their classmate is.) In my book, crying miserably does not indicate a positive attitude. Thus, by my own standards, I\u2019ve failed.<\/p>\n Fortunately, what we do have is an excellent starting point<\/em> for a worthy objective. While it is difficult to prove<\/em> that someone has a positive attitude about something, one of the markers of a positive attitude is when someone speaks<\/em> positively about it. They might also elaborate on things that they like about it. We can\u2019t train students to want to come to class, but can we train students to speak positively about Sabbath School? Of course! Students can\u2019t be taught emotions, but they can<\/em> be taught to develop skills<\/em>.<\/p>\n What if we defined success this way instead? As a result of this class, my students will be able to<\/u>\u2026<\/p>\n These are objectives that I can measure and say with confidence, \u201cYes! They can do these things!\u201d<\/p>\n Let\u2019s briefly look at the other two faulty objectives:<\/p>\n It is difficult to observe if or how much a student is growing in their relationship with God. But we can<\/em> observe if a student is able to<\/u>\u2026<\/p>\n It is difficult to observe if or how much a student understands that Jesus loves them. But we can<\/em> observe if a student is able to<\/u>\u2026<\/p>\n If you can observe an action specified by the objective, then that objective is measurable. If an objective does not include a specific, observable action, then that objective is unmeasurable. \u00a0Avoid unmeasurable objectives at all costs. However, if you discover that you have written an unmeasurable objective, don\u2019t throw it out right away. Instead, break it down to specific, observable actions and turn it into objectives that will set you – and your students – up for success.<\/p>\n Do you serve as a Sabbath school teacher in your local congregation? If not, would you like to? To become better equipped for this leadership role, here are some excellent Artios resources for you:<\/em><\/p>\n Week after week, year after year, students of all ages – infant to elderly \u2013 take their seat to engage in some form of Christian education. And at the end of each Sabbath school class or Bible study, we stand up, walk out, and more often than not, quickly forget most of what we were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":236,"featured_media":24911,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[560,70],"tags":[328,355,316,282,283,315],"yoast_head":"\nInstructional Objectives<\/h3>\n
The Three Components of an Objective<\/h3>\n
Performance<\/h4>\n
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Conditions<\/h4>\n
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Criterion<\/h4>\n
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Avoiding the Fail: Measurable vs. Unmeasurable Objectives<\/h3>\n
Possible pitfalls…<\/h4>\n
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Starting points…<\/h4>\n
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Specified actions equate measurable objectives in Sabbath school.<\/h4>\n
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