Agenda and learning objectives slides: what to put on them
The agenda slide is a map of the hour: the two or three blocks, each with what students will do in it, not a list of topics. The learning objectives slide is one to three sentences in the second person with testable verbs ("compute", "explain when", "compare"), and it comes back at the end as "what you can now do". Together: one slide, or two, and ninety seconds.
This guide gives both slides with examples, the verbs that work, the ones that do not, and how the same lines close the lecture.
The agenda slide
Topics are not an agenda. "1. Introduction 2. FCFS 3. SJF 4. RR 5. Summary" tells the room nothing about the hour. A map does:
## Today
1. Why scheduling is a trade-off · you pick a criterion
2. FCFS and SJF by hand · you draw two Gantt charts
3. Round-robin and the quantum · you compute waiting time for two quanta
**By the end you can** compute waiting time under three policies and say when each wins.
Each line is a block, its question in plain words, and the thing students produce. The room now knows there will be work, when, and what kind. The last line is the objective, which for most lectures is enough and saves a slide.
The learning objectives slide
When the course or the department wants objectives stated, give them their own slide, but write them so they mean something:
## By the end of this week you can
- **compute** average waiting time under FCFS, SJF and round-robin for a given set of processes
- **explain** when shortest-job-first is optimal and what it needs to work
- **choose** a quantum for a workload and say what it trades away
Three at most; each starts with a verb and names an object; each could be an exam question. That is the test: if you cannot write the exam question for an objective, it is not an objective.
Verbs that work
compute, derive, draw, explain why, compare, choose, predict, identify the error in, apply to, trace.
Verbs that do not
understand, know, appreciate, be familiar with, learn about. They describe a state nobody can observe and produce objectives nobody can mark.
Where the two slides go
After the title slide and the one-sentence recap, before the first block. Ninety seconds: read the map, say the objective aloud, start block one with its question. Do not read the objectives slide line by line; say what they will be able to do and move.
The close
The objectives return on the closing slide as achievements:
## What you can now do
- compute waiting time under three policies ✓
- explain when SJF is optimal, and what it needs ✓
- choose a quantum and say what it costs ✓
Next week: multilevel queues · read §5.3.5–5.3.6
Same verbs, past the tense. It is the strongest close a lecture has, and it costs nothing because the lines already exist. See how to start and end a lecture.
Across the course
The weekly objectives, collected, are the course's learning outcomes in the syllabus; if a week's objectives do not map to an outcome, either the outcome list or the week is wrong. Keep the objectives in the instructor guide for each unit and the syllabus derives from them. Lecture Studio's course chat has a Draft the syllabus starter that writes outcomes from the units and the sources; the unit's deck scaffold puts a Today's Agenda slide after the title.
FAQ
What should an agenda slide include?
The blocks of the lecture with the question each answers and what students will do in it, plus the one-line objective. Not a list of topic names.
How do I write learning objectives for a lecture?
One to three sentences starting with a testable verb (compute, explain, compare, choose) and naming an object. If you cannot write an exam question for it, rewrite it.
Should I read the learning objectives aloud?
Say them in one sentence and move on. The slide stays for those who read; the lecture proves them.
Where do learning objectives go in the slides?
After the title and recap, before the first block; then again at the end, in the past tense, as what students can now do.