Instructional objectives are written by teachers or instructional designers and express the intended outcome of instruction. They specify what the learners will be able to do as a result of instruction by stating the performance standards that learners are expected to achieve. Instructional objectives also go by other labels, such as behavioral objectives, performance objectives, or simply objectives. Two examples of instructional objectives are as follows: (1) given two single-digit numbers, the students will be able to add the numbers without the aid of a calculator, and (2) given a diagram of an amoeba, the seventh-grade science students will be able to label the protoplasm, nucleus, cytoplasm, and the pseudopodia.

Instructional objectives do not state instructional procedures. Instructional procedures refer to what teachers do during instruction, ...