In today’s educational landscape, no one seems to agree on what the learning objectives in school should be.
How should the goals in the classroom be established that are easy for teachers to implement and students to understand? What learning objectives should be used to create the strongest educational basis for learning in school?
What are Mager learning objectives?
These objectives are a performance-based set of objectives that define how well a learner can retain information and perform as a result of learning.
Learning is established by a performance done by the learner under certain conditions that are then evaluated by a set of standardized criteria.
As complicated as it sounds, Mager learning objectives are well-recognized and implemented daily in schools worldwide through standardized tests and exams.
In simple terms, it’s a way of establishing mastery of a subject by requiring the learner to demonstrate understanding in a performance-based task. The rest of this article will walk you through what are Mager learning objectives and how they apply to our modern world.
How Mager Learning Objectives Work
What are Mager learning objectives?
Learning objectives are important to evaluate a basis of what the learner is expected to understand by the end of their learning experience.
Well-defined learning objectives can make the learning experience more enjoyable and help students recognize what knowledge they’ll need to attain to succeed in their studies.
In their simplest form, Mager learning objectives help educators establish mastery of a subject through a performance-based evaluation.
Mager learning objectives are intended to clarify things to students and remove confusion wherever possible. As such, Mager learning objectives consist of three components.
- Performance
- Conditions
- Criteria
Performance
What are Mager learning objectives?
A performance, as we understand it, is simply a test. Of course, this performance can take on different forms. When we think about what are Mager learning objectives, we can think about it like this, It could be an actual standardized test like the SAT or an AP exam that is meant to test your knowledge in various fields of study.
A driver’s test puts a student’s knowledge behind the wheel under scrutiny, and as they learn to drive, students have some awareness of the performance they will have to undertake to establish mastery.
A physical fitness test like those conducted by the Army or Navy is also driven by Mager learning objectives since prospective applicants have to perform to demonstrate their mastery of physical discipline.
Conditions
What are Mager learning objectives?
As Mager suggested, conditions should only be used to clarify the expectations in the exam, not arbitrarily change it in a more confusing way.
For example, it’s reasonable to expect a driver to know how to conduct a three-point turn within a short period of time so that they’re not blocking traffic, which is why an instructor might put a time limit on the exercise during the driver’s test.
Conditions can also refer to restrictions such as no calculators being allowed during certain math exams. Educators what students to demonstrate their ability to recall and apply the formula from memory rather than simply plugging numbers into a calculator.
Criteria
What are Mager learning objectives?
Of course, performance needs to be evaluated by a set of criteria that make sense and are suited to the learning objectives.
This could be in the form of judging a racer to qualify for being within a specific time frame or requiring a certain number of points to pass a test. Criteria are the best way to judge mastery, and, of course, the more specific the learning objective, the more precise the criteria must be to match.
How Mager Learning Objectives Are Used
What are Mager learning objectives?
Learning objectives are used across the world, and for good reason. They’re the primary way that educators can evaluate and assess who has attained mastery of a subject through a performance-based evaluation.
Learning objectives are also important to students because they communicate exactly what they’re expected to learn, what information is important, and what they will be expected to retain on the exam (their performance).
Developing specific, attainable learning objectives are a crucial skill to learn as an educator. Mager learning objectives are also useful for self-motivation.
Articulating achievable, direct goals that are actionable communicate to the learner exactly what they need to learn in order to perform well. Avoid broad, vague, or irrelevant language when defining your learning objectives.
Use words like define, identify and list to immediately establish an actionable tone for your learning objectives.
For example, a lousy learning objective would be “Develop an appreciation for American literary techniques,” while a better, more actionable objective would be “Be able to identify and analyze three literary techniques that American authors used in their writing.”
Clarity is vital when writing Megar learning objectives, and the more that the students understand exactly what they will be expected to perform at the end of the learning process, the better equipped they will be to succeed.
Developing clear and concise learning objectives can also help educators reflectively assess their course material and teaching methods to achieve those goals better.
It’s good practice to regularly articulate the learning objectives to evaluate how well you’re teaching students to gear towards those learning objectives.
In a practical setting, establishing a framework for a one-liner learning objective might look something like these questions:
- What content are the students learning?
- What strategy best presents the subject material?
- How will the assessments be conducted?
These are especially helpful in today’s world of online learning, where objectives need to be clearly written out for students so that they know what to expect during their coursework.
Final Thoughts
Mager’s learning objectives are a crucial tool in education and even in life itself. In short, it’s simply saying, “show me what you’ve learned.”
An educator using Mager’s learning objectives establishes a performance-based exam or test that is meant to demonstrate a student’s skill or mastery of what they’re learning.
Their performance is often done under some conditions to clarify the learning objectives, and a standardized set of criteria evaluates the performance results.
Hey, I’m Kris Taylor. I’m a Learning and Development professional currently in the healthcare field, with over 8 years of experience in the area of corporate education. I have created numerous instructional content for various corporate projects including eLearning, in-person facilitation, and virtual training across a wide variety of learning interventions and sectors. On Taughtup, I discuss topics ranging from how to succeed through K-12 to college all the way to instructional design tips for L&D designers.
