If you don't believe in the value of your course, don't expect your students to find value in it. Your attitude is contagious, and this part of the syllabus is one opportunity to lay a solid foundation for positive attitudes about the course. Mission By mission, we refer to the goals, instructional objectives, and learning outcomes that you desire for this class. There are those who adopt a constructivist approach to learning that suggests goals, objectives, and outcomes should come from the students, not be supplied by the instructor. Give thought to this and decide the extent to which you wish to include these items in your syllabus, negotiate them with your students as a class, or permit students to generate their own individual list.
Goals are somewhat general statements that specify somewhat broadly what one wants to accomplish.
Instructional objectives are more concrete and imply measurable indicators of their attainment. Norman Gronlund suggests that instructional objectives should be articulated in terms of learning outcomes, that is, specifying student behavior and performance, not instructor activities. Write objectives for what you want your students to do, not what you are going to do. Specifying learning objectives as learning outcomes has three major benefits. First, it helps to organize your course, and a well-organized course actually helps students learn more effectively.