Writing Learning Objectives For Online Training: Essential Steps

When you’re developing a plan for creating online training, you need to know how challenging it can be. Doing everything from scratch means planning the lessons, writing the content, reaching out to potential learners, and putting all of it together. While this may sound like a complex process, it’s quite simple, if you know what you want to achieve. This is why you should write the learning objectives for your online training.

This article breaks down the essential steps for defining your learning objectives and using them to create brilliant online training. 

• Why Should You Write Learning Objectives For Online Training?

Before we head to writing the objectives, let’s take a step back and think bout the importance of this activity. Why is it so important that you write the learning objectives? What is the purpose, and what are the benefits?

It’s very simple. Writing down the learning objectives will have you:

• do better preparation
• create training content with ease
• create user-centered training content
• help the trainees achieve their goals
• get better feedback and have more satisfied trainees

If you know what you want to achieve, you’ll also know what’s the best way to do it. Doing this type of work before starting to write the training materials will simplify the whole process and help you breeze through the rest of the training preparation.

Here are the steps to take:

1. The Ideal Trainee

To be able to create powerful and effective online training, you need to define the ideal trainee. That means you have to know who this course is for.

Think about the target trainee in terms of:

• the problems they’re facing
• the knowledge gap they want to fill
• the questions they need answered

You have to know who these people are to understand what they expect from the training. This will help you move on to the next step.

2. The Why

Next, you’ll need to define the sole purpose of creating your training. Why are you doing this? What is the ultimate goal?

The „Why“ should be defined clearly and briefly. Try fitting it all into one sentence. For instance:

• This training will teach people how to create visual materials for an online presentation.

Keep it simple and focus on the “Why” while moving on to the next steps.

3. The Before & After

Your next move is to define what you want your trainees to be like after finishing the training. You want to know exactly what you want them to achieve and gain through your training.

So, think of it in terms of a before and after situation:

• What is it that they didn’t know, and now they do?
• What is it that they couldn’t do, and now they can?
• How did they feel before, and how do they feel now?
• What business opportunities will they be able to seize after finishing the training? 

Here’s an example:

• Before taking the course, the trainees didn’t know how to use free graphic design tools and presentation makers. After, they’re able to produce presentation materials from scratch using these tools.

4. Write the Key Goals

Now that you’ve analyzed the situation and did the research and thinking you needed to do, it’s time to start actually writing the objectives. These objectives are the defining goals that you want your trainees to achieve.

First, you’ll write down the key goals for your online training. There should be several goals that will determine the full capacity of the training and tell the trainees what to expect.

So, here’s what you need to do:

• think about the main objectives you want the trainees to achieve
• don’t go into too many details
• focus on the end-goal and the final result

Once you finish writing these main goals, you’ll break them down into micro-goals, as explained in the next step.

5. Create Micro-Goals

There must be a clear road for achieving the key goals you’ve defined above. Your trainees will want to know a bit more about the way you plan on carrying it all out and leading them to acquire new skills or knowledge.

This is why you’ll write micro-goals for each of the key goals you’ve defined. But, what are these micro-goals?

Simply put, micro-goals are the steps your trainees will need to take to achieve each of the key goals. These steps include:

• the resources they’ll use
• the milestones they’ll reach
• the skills they’ll master
• the tasks they’ll complete

This step is about defining the road to achieving the goals. It tells the trainees exactly what they’ll do throughout the course.

6. Use Simple Language

To make the learning objectives of your online training understandable and relatable, you should use simple language when writing them. 

Simple language means:

• the language your target trainees use
• simple, everyday vocabulary
• clear sentence structure
• active voice
• no redundant words or phrases

The simpler, the better. Just try saying everything you want to say in the simplest way possible and using as few words as you can. This will help you hit the bull’s eye and present the learning objectives properly.

Final Thoughts

To make your online training successful, you need to define its purpose. Your learning objectives are everything you need for developing effective and high-quality training.

The steps we’ve shared above will guide you through the process of writing your learning objectives. Use them and start working on your objectives today.

Author’s bio. Jessica Fender is a researcher and academic content creator. Her job is to facilitate student learning – she creates educational content that aligns with search queries “write my essay online” and “hire writer”. When Jessica has free time, she enjoys reading, blogging, and hiking.