Learning objectives and success criteria

Before you read this article, do me a favour and draw a picture of a house. Promise me that you won’t read on until you have a sketch in front of you? 

Done? Great. In this article I’d like to explore:

1. Why we need learning objectives and success criteria.
2. How to write learning objectives and check learners’ understanding.
3. What to do with objectives to measure progress.

Why we need learning objectives and success criteria 

To help me explore the why, please mark the sketch you just did. For each of the following criteria, give yourself five marks:

• A front door.
• A path leading to the front door.
• Five or more windows, each with curtains.
• A chimney with two chimney pots.
• A garage.
• A driveway with a car parked in it.
• A garden with a tree and a swing.
• A conservatory.

Award yourself a mark out of 40 and convert it to a grade: 

• A (40 marks)
• B (35 to 39 marks)
• C (30 to 34 marks)
• D (25 to 29 marks)
• E (20 to 24 marks)
• F (15 to 19 marks)
• G (10 to 14 marks)
• U (0 to 9 marks)

How did you do? My guess, and I mean no offence by this, is that you did badly. Something south of an E grade most likely. That’s certainly what happens whenever I give colleagues this task to do during training sessions.

Why? The answer to that question forms the central message of this article: I did not share the learning objectives or success criteria in advance of you completing the task.

As a result, you had no idea why I was asking you to draw a picture of a house nor what doing so would help you to learn. You had no idea how the task fitted into the bigger picture of your learning, nor what “a good one would look like” in the end.

Neither did you know that your picture would be assessed and how it would be assessed.
In short, I set you up to fail. Sorry about that! But the message to take away is clear: learning objectives and success criteria are integral to securing learner progress.

If I had wanted to give you a fighting chance of success, I should have explained what you were expected to learn, why that was important, and how that learning would be used later – including how it would be assessed. 
And the best learning objectives and success criteria do just that. 

Learning objectives are not lists of tasks 

Learning objectives do not articulate what learners will do in the lesson; rather, what learners will know by the end of the lesson, what they will take away with them. I’ll return to this shortly.

Success criteria, meanwhile, set out what a good one looks like. They are measurable statements used to determine whether – or to what extent – learners have achieved the learning objectives. We’ll return to this shortly, too. 

If learners do not know what they are supposed to be learning and how their work will eventually be judged, then their ability to learn and make progress will be stymied. We want learners to know what we intend for them to learn and to understand what successful outcomes will look like. 

Learning objectives and success criteria are central to helping learners establish:

• Where they are in their learning.
• Where they are going.
• How they will get there.

But here's an important health warning: Every lesson does not have to start with a set of objectives scribed on the board which learners copy down.

First, lessons are artificial blocks of study not a complete learning sequence and not every lesson, therefore, needs to start with objectives.

Second, there is rarely anything to be gained by learners copying from the board. Rather, the direction of travel should be shared with learners when they begin a new topic or module.

Also, sometimes, it is helpful to withhold the learning objectives to pique learners’ curiosity or provide an element of surprise. In those cases, learners can formulate the learning objectives themselves at the end of the lesson to test if they have understood the key takeaways. Please note, however, that success criteria should always be shared before learners complete an assessed task.

That’s the why, now let’s explore the how…

How to write learning objectives and check learners’ understanding 

As I have said, learning objectives are not synonymous with tasks. When writing objectives, I suggest we start at the end and ask: What do I want learners to know and do at the end of this lesson? And: What do I need learners to think about in the lesson in order for them to acquire that knowledge?

Here's a useful 10-step sequence for writing effective learning objectives:

1. Identify the takeaway: Determine the overarching goal of your lesson. What do you want learners to know, understand, or be able to do by the end of the lesson? This will serve as a foundation for your learning objectives.
2. Use action verbs: Start your learning objectives with action verbs that clearly describe the intended learning outcome. Common action verbs used in learning objectives include: analyse, compare, create, evaluate, identify, explain, interpret, solve, etc. Avoid vague verbs like “understand” or “know” because these are difficult to measure. More on this shortly.
3. Consider using Bloom's Taxonomy: This is a useful framework for categorising different levels of cognitive learning. Consider the level of thinking skills you want to target in your objectives. Bloom's Taxonomy includes levels such as remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating, and creating. I’ll come back to this too.
4. Be specific and observable: Make your objectives specific and observable so that you and your learners can clearly determine whether they have been achieved. Avoid ambiguous language and focus on concrete behaviours or tasks. For example, instead of “to understand photosynthesis”, you might say “to explain the process of photosynthesis”.
5. Be realistic and achievable: Ensure that your learning objectives are achievable within the timeframe allocated and with the resources available to learners. Also, consider learners’ prior knowledge when setting objectives. Ask yourself: what can realistically be achieved in this lesson?
6. Align with the curriculum: Align your learning objectives with your curriculum or scheme of work, and, where applicable, with the course learning outcomes and assessment objectives.
7. Use SMART criteria: Apply SMART criteria to your learning objectives to make them Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This helps ensure clarity and effectiveness.
8. Provide context if necessary: If the learning objectives require specific context or conditions, include this information in the objective. For example, if learners need to use certain resources or tools to achieve the objective, mention them in the objective.
9. Communicate the objectives: Communicate the learning objectives to your learners to help them understand what they are expected to learn and provide a clear focus for their efforts.
10. Check understanding of the objective Once communicated, check that learners understand the objectives. Do they all know what is being asked of them, why that matters, and how their learning will be assessed?

Action verbs 

When writing learning objectives, it is important to get the language right. Try to avoid expressions such as “know”, “understand”, “appreciate”, “be familiar with”, or “be aware of” because these are vague and difficult to assess.

There are many lists of appropriate verbs available, mostly based on Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Objectives (1956) which identified six levels of “cognitive domain”, each subsuming the last. The taxonomy is as follows:

Knowledge (or remembering)
Although “know” is not a helpful verb for learning objectives, knowledge is the first step on the learning ladder because, without knowledge, learners can do nothing else. Therefore, think of a verb that describes what a student can do to demonstrate their knowledge. Here are a few suggestions: Define. List. Identify. Label. Describe. Outline.

Comprehension (or understanding)
Understanding is important, but again “understand” is not a very useful verb because it is imprecise. Rather, use verbs which will demonstrate learners’ understanding, such as: Explain. Summarise. Paraphrase. Classify. Infer. Predict.

Application
This is where learners can put their knowledge and understanding to use in various contexts. The following action verbs are helpful here: Apply. Use. Demonstrate. Solve. Implement. Illustrate.

Analysis
This is about understanding complex structures by the identification of parts and their relationships – being able to break things down into their constituent parts and examine how each part works. Learning objectives that test analysis can ask learners to do the following: Analyse. Compare. Contrast. Categorise. Examine. Investigate.

Evaluation
This is where learners make judgements based on evidence. Useful verbs at this level of cognitive demand include: Evaluate. Assess. Argue. Justify. Interpret. Prioritise.

Synthesis (or creating)
This is about putting parts together to form a new whole, which is important in constructing an argument and integrating knowledge. The following action verbs are useful: Create. Design. Construct. Plan. Produce. Build.

Curriculum progression

If you sequence your curriculum using a progression model approach, a lot of this work is done for you. For example, when teaching my English learners about explicit and implicit meanings, I use the following sequence:

1. To define the words explicit and implicit.
2. To identify an explicit and implicit meaning in a non-fiction text.
3. To identify both explicit and implicit meanings in a range of different text types.
4. To explain why a writer has implied rather than explicitly stated something.
5. To analyse writers’ use of explicit and implicit meanings.
6. To evaluate writers’ use of explicit and implicit meanings.
7. To create a non-fiction using both explicit and implicit meanings.

The sequence – which is progressive in the sense that it takes learners on a journey through Bloom’s Taxonomy as they move from knowledge recall towards higher order thinking – bakes-in retrieval practice and provides a meaningful means of assessment. But crucially, a sequence like this also provides ready-made objectives. 

Open and closed objectives

Learning objectives can either be open or closed. 

Closed objectives are absolute. Success is binary: learners either know it or don’t yet know it; they can either do it or can’t yet do it. In the example above, either they can define the term “explicit”, or they can’t. Either they can identify an explicit meaning, or they can’t.

Open objectives, however, suggest that success is on a continuum. For example, the way a learner explains why a writer chose to imply something rather than explicitly state it might be anywhere from very effective to very ineffective. 

When the objective is closed and success is binary, success criteria can take the form of following a set of instructions. However, when the objective is open and success is subjective, success criteria can more usefully take the form of a toolkit. There is not one way to be successful and the choices that learners make might result in stronger or weaker examples of achieving what was intended. 

What to do with objectives to measure progress 
 
Perhaps the most important part of sharing learning objectives is checking that learners understand them. To be certain of this, it is important to engage learners in a discussion. For example, we may ask learners what – in their own words – they think the learning objectives mean. 

We may ask how they will know they have achieved the learning objectives, and why they think it is important to do so. We may also ask learners how the learning objectives relate to what they have previously learned and how they think achieving the learning objectives will help them with their future learning.

Success criteria 

Once objectives have been shared, we should agree what success will look like and what learners will be assessed on.

Having the success criteria visible helps learners to stay focused on their learning. It is sometimes a list of instructions to help them reach a goal. For example, if the learning objective is “to write a set of instructions”, then the success criteria might be:

• Write in the present tense.
• Use imperative verbs and adverbs to begin each step.
• Use topic words.
• Use conjunctions of time.
• Use imperative verbs and adverbs to begin each step.
• Use clear descriptions.

Success criteria is most effective when it:

• Links to the learning objectives.
• Is specific to a lesson or task.
• Is discussed, co-constructed and agreed with learners.
• Is given prior to undertaking an assessed task.
• Uses learner-friendly language.
• Remains visible and is referred to during the task.
• Is used as the basis for feedback.

The good news is that if you have designed a progressive curriculum, then you should have a set of ready-made success criteria. For example, you can convert the objectives into a series of “can do” statements to create success criteria, as follows:

1. I can define the words explicit and implicit.
2. I can identify an explicit and implicit meaning in a non-fiction text.
3. I can identify both explicit and implicit meanings in a range of different text types.
4. I can explain why a writer has implied rather than explicitly stated something.
5. I can analyse writers’ use of explicit and implicit meanings.
6. I can evaluate writers’ use of explicit and implicit meanings. 
7. I can write a non-fiction text using both explicit and implicit meanings. 

Matt Bromley is an education journalist, author, and advisor with 25 years’ experience in teaching and leadership including as a secondary school headteacher. He remains a practising teacher. Matt is the author of numerous books on education and co-host of the award-winning SecEd Podcast. Find him on X @mj_bromley. Read his previous articles for SecEd via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/matt-bromley