Beyond Compliance: Learning Objectives That Actually Drive Course Design
SESSION DATES & TIMES COMING IN AUGUST 2026
Audience Classification: Online Learning Audience Expertise: Newbies - Early stage implementers: attendees running a program in its first 1–2 years and looking for foundational strategies. Grade Level Focus: Middle Schools, High Schools, Higher Education Primary Audience: Content Designer, Teacher, Inst Leader Does this session focus on a specific product? No – This session is focused on ideas, strategies, or practices, not a specific product or service.
Assistant Professor & Instructional Designer Medical University of South Carolina Johns Island, SC, United States
Abstract Description : Traditional approaches to learning objectives often treat them as compliance checkboxes—something to post on the board with little connection to actual instruction. In online and blended learning environments, this approach fails both instructors and students. This session introduces a disciplined, designer-centered approach to writing learning objectives that function as the structural framework for entire courses. Participants will explore how strategically written objectives serve multiple purposes: they provide transparency for students about what they're learning and why, ensure alignment between instruction and assessment, create accountability for curriculum coverage, and offer a roadmap for future course revisions. Through concrete examples from science and English courses, attendees will see how objectives can be deliberately distributed across modules to develop complex skills over time rather than simply covering discrete content.
Learning Objectives:
Distinguish between compliance-based objectives and design-driven learning objectives that serve as the foundation for course development
Create a strategic framework connecting institutional values and principles, course goals, module-level objectives, and assessments that ensures accessible, transparent and well-designed courses
