On September 17, Dorothy Mollise (Student Academic Success and Retention) led an excellent Teaching Seminar on Learning Outcomes.  Her presentation was centered around two basic questions;

• What are learning outcomes?
• Why do we need them?

She explained that learning outcomes are tangible descriptions of what we expect students to know at the conclusion of a lesson (or course or program).  The important thing about this is that they are measurable and are directed toward student behavior, not instructor performance.  This significant shift in emphasis doesn’t consider what the instructor covers or does, only what the student learns.

Dorothy also stressed that learning outcomes should not only be in the syllabus, but also communicated every class period.

The reason we need learning outcomes is because they help us improve student learning by giving instructors a guideline for designing instruction, assessing student performance, and evaluating our performance.

We can determine if our learning outcomes are any good by asking if students will have the opportunity to practice and receive feedback, and if we can apply an appropriate assessment method to measure whether students have achieved them.