Learning Objectives and Bloom's Taxonomy

Designing Your Course
Learning Objectives and Bloom's Taxonomy

Learning Objectives

Backwards Design begins and ends with learning objectives, which are statements describing what learners will Be Able to Do upon completion of a unit of instruction. They help us decide what learners should learn and how we will determine whether they have learned that content. This brings up an important point: We write these learning objectives to guide the design of the course.  

Many instructors may be tempted to begin by worrying about details of technology for implementing their online course. Instead, your course creation process should begin with Learning Outcomes. Before doing anything else, you want to figure out what it is you want students to learn and how you will measure their success.

How to Write a Learning Objective

We will be using the SMART framework for writing learning objectives. Introduce yourself to the concept by visiting the web page below, then watching the video.

UMass Dartmouth: Creating S.M.A.R.T. Goals Links to an external site.

Summary of the S.M.A.R.T. Framework

Use the SMART framework when you are writing your learning objective so that it is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and has a Timeframe.  More specifically, make sure your learning objective clearly states: 

  • what you want to achieve (e.g. the specific skill or performance), 

  • how you will measure your achievement (i.e. the standard or criteria that you will use to measure if you have achieved it), 

  • and the timeframe that you have allocated for your future achievement (when you want to be able to do it by e.g. by the end of week 8). 

In terms of whether a learning objective is Achievable or Realistic, it will depend on your role, skills, time and resources.  These two elements are important to consider for all parts of the learning outcome. Download the SMART framework document Download Download the SMART framework document.

Bloom's Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a classification of the different objectives and skills that educators set for their students. The taxonomy was proposed in 1946 by Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist at the University of Chicago. The terminology has been was revised in 2001 by a group of cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists to six levels of learning; these 6 levels can be used to structure the learning objectives, lessons, and assessments of your course: 

  1. Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long‐term memory. 
  2. Understanding: Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining. 
  3. Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure for executing, or implementing. 
  4. Analyzing: Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and attributing. 
  5. Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing. 
  6. Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing. 

This document provides a listing of possible learning experiences organized according to Bloom's taxonomy Download a listing of possible learning experiences organized according to Bloom's taxonomy. These learning experiences best represent active learning experiences (please follow link to learn more about Active Learning). Save this for future reference as you design your course.