In order to create great lessons, a teacher needs to know the curriculum, know the lesson content, know the students, and know how to set objectives that will engage these students as thinkers and put them on the path to learning. In this excerpt from Where Great Teaching Begins, Anne R. Reeves introduces and illustrates a step-by-step process for analyzing complex academic standards—like those in the Common Core—and translating them into lesson objectives that are specific and learner-focused, describe learning outcomes rather than activities, and engage higher-order thinking skills.

This leading book is a concise and practical resource to writing and using objectives. This adaptable guide tells and shows how to state instructional objectives as intended learning outcomes, and how to use them in teaching and assessment. Expanded coverage in key areas, along with thorough updates, makes it the essential how-to-do-it book regarding instructional objectives. Describes and illustrates how to state instructional objectives in performance terms that clearly define desired learning outcomes (intellectual, affective, and performance skills) and expected student performance. Demonstrates how to use them in planning, teaching, learning, and assessment.

Provides a step-by-step guide to writing instructional objectives as intended learning outcomes. The author describes how to state objectives in terms of the type of performance students must demonstrate in order to show that they have achieved the goals of the instruction--and illustrates his recommended methods with numerous examples. Describes a specific procedure for writing objectives--one that can be used to achieve all types of learning outcomes and is especially suited to teaching thinking, performance, and problem-solving skills. Stresses the important role of objectives in the teaching-learning assessment process and how they can be used to improve student learning. Includes material on the use of a table of specifications for item writing; information and new illustrations on how to prepare assessment instruments; five chapters on writing objectives for specific skills--cognitive, affective, and performance; and two chapters on using objectives in constructing and interpreting achievement assessments. For use as a supplement to elementary, middle-school, secondary, and K-12 general methods teachers who want to become proficient at writing instructional objectives early in their career.

Instructional objectives are the cornerstone of successful instruction. When written well, they enable you to identify appropriate content for your instruction, organize your instruction in the best way possible, and create tools to accurately determine if instruction is achieving your goals. This book is your systematic guide to identifying, selecting, and writing objectives that create the foundation for instructional success. Newly revised and completely updated, this third edition shows you how to write objectives that give you the power to: Select the best content and methods for achieving your objectives; Provide learners with a road map to guide them through the learning process; Give learners a better chance of succeeding; and Demonstrate the value of what you're teaching. -- from Back Cover.

Enhanced by numerous examples, a guide to writing instructional objectives as intended learning outcomes explains how to state objectives in terms of the type of performance needed by the students to show that the goals of the instruction have been achieved.