Learning Outcomes

The following questions and explanations will help faculty design learning outcomes that
provide students with clear guidance on what to expect from a course. Developing effective
learning outcomes becomes a tool to systematically reflect on your teaching and give your course
a coherent structure
What are Learning Outcomes?
You can look at what happens in a course from two perspectives:
 (1) What the instructor does,
and (2) what the students learn.
 Traditionally, faculty have taken the first perspective and described in their syllabi what they wanted to “cover” in the course. That generally lead to declarations of what content was important to the instructor (e.g., “Providing an overview of…,” “Addressing the differences between…,” “Exploring new concepts in…,” “Familiarizing students with the conventions of…”). While coverage statements may give students a vague idea of the knowledge domains the instructor values, they tell little about how the students are expected to use that knowledge. That’s where learning outcomes come in. They require the instructor to take the students’ perspective and make a realistic estimate of what students are supposed to know and be able to do by the end of the course. In other words, they force instructors to be more focused and purposeful in their planning and develop a system that aligns intended learning outcomes with appropriate assessment measures and instructional activities.
What are characteristics of effective Learning Outcomes?
Writing good learning outcomes takes time and experience. It is very difficult to come up with good outcomes if you don’t know the students you will be teaching and have never taught the course before. A good set of learning outcomes requires considerable understanding of how to best relate the course content to your types of students: how to challenge without losing them; how to make the course meaningful to your students’ needs and life experiences; and how to educate for life while grading the accomplishments of just a few weeks. The following six guidelines summarize the essence of effective learning outcomes.
1. Student-focused, not professor-focused
That means: learning not coverage-oriented
2. Alignment between course, program, and institutional levels
Course outcomes need to reflect both the goals that the academic program represents as
well as the broader mission of the institution as a whole
3. Focus on abilities central to the discipline
Course outcomes should help prepare students for what is important to the discipline of
which the course is a part
4. Focus on aspects of learning that will endure
Teaching students new modes of thinking is likely to have an impact on their future;
having them memorize facts tends to be much more short-lived
5. Are limited to manageable number
Learning outcomes should focus a course on a few (say, 4-6) key purposes that have a
realistic chance of being accomplished within a semester
6. Specific enough to be measurable
Learning outcomes should be general enough to capture important learning, but specific
enough to allow for a fair assessment, whose criteria are clearly communicated to
students