EDU 287 Joan Ehrlich

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SCRIPT – Writing Behavioral Objectives

Slide 1: Title: Writing Behavioral Objectives

This presentation explains the importance of writing behavioral objectives and provides

some steps to help you get started in the process.

Slide 2: Photo of Child Working on an Art Project

Children learn by doing, and by observing them, we are able to ascertain what they have

learned.

Behavioral objectives describe what one should expect to see as evidence that the child

has learned.

Therefore, behavioral objectives are a critical part of any lesson plan.

Slide 3: List of components of a lesson plan

The following are the components you should expect to see in a lesson plan. Some of

the categories or headings may vary somewhat, but generally speaking; these should appear in

one form or another in a well-organized lesson plan.

Goal

Behavioral Objectives

Activity

Procedure

Materials

Environment

Measurement/Assessment

Reflection/Assessment

EDU 287 Joan Ehrlich

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Slide 4: List of components of a lesson plan

For the purpose of this discussion, we are going to focus on the Behavioral Objective

component of the lesson plan.

Goal

Activity

Procedure

Materials

Environment

Measurement/Assessment

Reflection/Assessment

Slide 5: The goal describes, in general, what you hope to achieve in your lesson

Here you can see that, very generally speaking, the teacher wants to help the children

develop and use appropriate social skills. Getting a little more specific, the teacher wants the

children to take turns while playing games. However, the teacher will have to get even more

specific as this goal becomes articulated as a behavioral objective.

Slide 6: Objectives describe, specifically, what the student will do to Demonstrate Mastery of

the Goal

Based on your goal of developing social skills, here is an example of a behavioral

objective you might have, that could be accomplished in a game of Follow the Leader.

Behavioral Objectives

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Slide 7: Objectives are Observable

One of the key requirements of a behavioral objective is that whatever is to be

measured must be observable. So for example, to Count, Recite, Move, Tell, and

Describe. These can be observed. These, on the other hand, can NOT be observed:

Think, Understand, or Know. These things go on inside a child’s head. You must see the

child do something – like count, for example – in order to say that he or she

understands or knows numbers.

Slide 8: Objectives are measurable

In addition to stating an observable behavior, you must also indicate a way to measure

success. What determines mastery of the skill or concept?

You might want the child to perform an activity 80% of the time, or another way of

saying that would be 4 OUT OF 5 trials or 8 out of 10 opportunities.

You might want a child to retell a story he has heard, with 70% accuracy or 7/10 details

included.

Slide 9: Behavioral Objectives have 3 main components

Performance describes what you want the student to do to show that he/she has

mastered the skill or the information? This part of the objective includes an active verb

like describe, define, tell, and recite. These are behaviors that can be observed.

Condition describes the situation or conditions under which you expect this behavior to

occur. For example, given a prompt from the teacher …

Measurement (Criteria) tells how many times (or how well) the behavior must occur to

be considered mastery.

You may have noticed that the previous slide, showing measurement, did not include

100% accuracy. That is because 70% - 80% accuracy is usually considered mastery. You always

want to leave room for error, even for a skill or subject that has been mastered.

EDU 287 Joan Ehrlich

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Slide 10: Using the example from before

Using our example of behavioral objective from before, here are your components: Performance

(the student) will go to the back of the line. Condition

In a game of Follow the Leader With prompt from teacher

Measurement (Criteria) – in 4/5 opportunities

Slide 11: The Ultimate test of a behavioral, measurable objective is that anyone reading it can

picture what the student will do to demonstrate that the skill has been mastered.

When writing a behavioral objective, you want to keep this rule of thumb in mind.

Anyone who reads your objective should be able to understand exactly what skill or concept is

to be mastered, what the student is expected to do to demonstrate mastery, and what criteria

will be used to measure mastery.