Lessons can feel like they are already weighing too much before they’ve even started. A subject seems important, an activity looks appealing, and the educator wants pupils to understand everything possible. And then the lesson objective becomes something like “understand communication” or “learn fractions” or “improve writing.” Those objectives sound important, but they don’t offer enough guidance to plan with. A little lesson objective will state what pupils will rehearse, what they will create or reveal, and how you will know that your lesson was effective.
In introductory pedagogical theory, the objective is not an ornament on the top of your lesson plan. It is the decision that governs lesson order. If the objective is too general, the instruction will be too wordy, the activity might not reflect what you want to do, and the summary will be vague. A specific objective allows you to select one example, one guided practice session, one free practice time, and one verification exercise. You will also learn not to teach several lessons all at the same time.
One way to take something too broad and make it less than it is: ask what pupils should be able to do when the lesson is over, not when the term, the month, or the unit is over. “Learn rules for the classroom” is too general. “List two rules for the classroom and when to apply them” is easier to plan. “Read better” is too general. “Recognize the major point in a one-paragraph text” will be a better guide for instruction. You won’t make the lesson less important with its smaller version, just more apparent what the result will be.
Now, the second stage is to consider whether or not the objective has a verb. Verbs like understand, know, learn, and admire may serve in the spoken conversation, but are hard to detect in a lesson. Verbs like identify, pair, explain, compare, solve, mark, choose, write, and enact are much simpler to align with learner performance. The point is not that every objective needs to be formal sounding, but rather it must enable you to see what pupils are doing in class instead of just what you expect them to think about.
When you write your draft objective, make sure to compare it with the activities you have prepared. Say, the goal says that pupils will compose a strong topic sentence. That would mean that the guided practice should have pupils look at sample topic sentences, improve faulty ones, or draft one with some coaching. A class dialogue on a more global approach to writing might also be a fun thing to do, but might not be so helpful to such an objective. This is another point where inexperienced teachers often struggle with pacing. They will just include an activity that seems important or valuable, only to realize that there is no time for practice, feedback, or review.
You will find it useful to do some simple preplanning before you write a detailed lesson plan. For a broad topic, think of three small objectives, and then highlight which of those can be practiced in a relatively short time. Then, think of a single check question or activity you can use to measure the goal. If there is no way you can think of an immediate check, then the goal was probably too open-ended. For example, if the goal was to “learn to give better feedback,” you might not know how to check. But if the goal is to “take ambiguous feedback and rewrite it so it is a specific correction and a recommendation for what to do next,” a simple check is possible.
The power of a small objective is that it makes for a more relaxed approach to a lesson. It will let you know when and how you need to explain, and what the pupils need to do. It will also help you to better evaluate your teaching by answering the question of whether or not the objective gave you enough guidance to determine what you need to teach, how you must ask your questions, how you will comment in your feedback, and how you will sum up. That one question will help you move toward a better plan the next day.