Teaching Prepared by Caroline W. Ndirangu

2.2 
Learning Objectives
Learning objectives are important in all aspects of the teaching and learning 
process. Learning or instructional objectives are concrete statements of the goals 
towards which instruction is directed. Objectives provide a genre for choosing sub-
ject matter content, sequencing topics and for allocating teaching time. Learning 
objectives also guide in the selection of materials and procedures to be employed 
in the actual teaching process. Further they provide standards as well as criteria 
for evaluating the quality and efficiency of teaching and learning activities. 
Historically teachers have looked to Blooms taxonomy (1956) “Taxonomy of 
Educational Objectives” for the levels of learning, teaching and evaluating. The 
main value of taxonomy is two fold:
•  It can stimulate teachers to help learners acquire skills at all of levels by 
laying the proper foundations for higher levels by assuring mastery of 
lower level objectives.
•  It provides a basis for developing measurement strategies to assess stu-
dent performance at all the levels of learning.( Bloom, 1956 )