Creating quality SMART Objectives for a program or an event seems to elude many of us. As educators, we know that an objective is the outcome that we desire at the end of our lesson. Therefore, an objective must be plausible and have evaluability. As I review our District’s programs and events, I see several avenues of misunderstanding when it comes to goals, objectives and SMART objectives. Too often I see general goal-type statements where objectives should be. According to Joellen Killion, a goal is a statement of the overall purpose of a program. An objective, on the other hand, is a specific statement detailing the desired accomplishments of a program or event.Taking this thought a step further, program and event objectives should be SMART-ly written. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely and can be broken down as follows:
Specific – The objective denotes one single key result using an action verb such as plan, write, produce, conduct, etc.
Measurable – The objective can be evaluated. Usually we use numbers, percentages, or frequency.
Attainable – The objective is realistic in proportion to the available resources. In other words, if a school does not have wireless carts, you cannot state that 75% of the teachers will use Wireless Carts in their classrooms.
Relevant – The objective supports the goal of the program, or the needs assessment.
Timely – The objective contains a stated timeframe for completion. (i.e. by the end of the session)
Let’s look at a performance gap (need) and an example of an aligned, dissected SMART objective.
Performance Gap (need): A study of 30 random events indicates that a group of designers failed to indicate the formative and summative strategies needed to evaluate participant learning in their course design .
SMART Objective: By the end of the event (timely), designers will be able to use a rubric (attainable) to select (specific) at least 3 methods of evaluating participant learning (measurable). Objective is relevant to the need.
If you require further assistance, please let me know how I can help you create smart SMART objectives for your program (district-based) or event (district or school-based). It would be my pleasure to hear from you.
I'm blogging out of here.Kyna
