Performance Objectives

Performance Objectives

When constructing lesson plans in any subject, you need a good objective. The objective is almost like the goal that you want you students to achieve: it is what you want your students to do during that time. There are four parts to a good performance objective: the audience, the behavior, the condition, and the degree. All of these aspects are detailed and specific enough so that the student should be doing exactly what is said in the lesson plan. When thinking of the audience, you are thinking who this lesson is being made for. What does your class know already or need to learn in this new lesson? What is their tone like as a whole? Why are they learning this new information and how is it going to be done? Next thing to keep in mind is the behavior of the lesson. During this lesson you are trying to have your students meet a goal; what do you want them to do behavior wise that will help them to learn this topic? How are you going to change your students behavior to match the criteria of the lesson? Thirdly, is condition; you want to keep in mind condition because it is the setting and/or state of the goal that you want your class to work in. The condition is how you are going to implement the lesson and help the class achieve their goal. Last thing you want to keep in mind is the degree in which the objective is. For this you could use a rubric to determine if the students work is satisfactory enough to meet and reach acceptable performance. 

Keeping in mind all of these aspects when putting together a performance objective is important because it is the main focus of a lesson. The students are working to meet this objective and you as the teacher are discreetly but efficiently trying to help them achieve that goal. Performance objectives are not just simple goals such as, "The student will tie their shoe". Performance goals are complex and detailed: making them this way will better help your students learn!