Lessons · Teaching · an objective you can watch happen
An objective is something you can watch happen
An objective names what a learner will do that you can observe, so understand, know and appreciate are not objectives; and the success criteria say what a good one looks like, drafted at planning time rather than at marking time.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
The plan said students will understand the three branches of government. The lesson was fine. At the end you had no idea whether it had worked, because there is no way to watch understanding happen. The verb you choose decides whether you can tell.
How to think about it
Pick a verb you could film: list, label, sort, solve, annotate, explain in writing. Put a number in it where you can. Then write the success criteria underneath, in words a learner can hold themselves against, and do it before you plan a single activity.
Worked example
Not an objective: students will understand the three branchesNothing to watch, so nothing to check, so nothing to plan backwards from.
Objective: students will list the three branches and say what each doesA verb you could film, and an amount: three.
Success criteria: names all 3 branches, gives 1 job for each, uses the word law correctlyWhat a good one looks like, in words a learner can check themselves against.
Evidence: 6 lines in the book, marked against those 3 criteriaThe criteria and the marking are the same list, which is the point of drafting them first.
Your turn
Write the line that says when success criteria are drafted.
Success criteria are written the lesson is taught.
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Writing the objective as the activity. Students will make a poster is a thing that happens, not a thing learned, and two children can both finish the poster while only one of them can name a branch.