Writing learning outcomes

1. Writing
Learning
Outcomes
Best Practices

2. Workshop’s Learning
Outcomes
Attendees will:
• Summarize the role of learning
outcomes in instruction, in order to
illustrate an understanding of
assessment’s importance.
– Why we are writing learning outcomes
– The role of learning outcomes in
assessment
– Why it is important to assess student
learning

3. Workshop’s Learning
Outcomes
Attendees will:
• Recognize the levels of Bloom’s
Taxonomy, in order to select verbs
that map to instruction objectives.
– Levels of behavioral outcomes
– Cognitive domain
– Levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy
– Bloom’s group activity

4. Workshop’s Learning
Outcomes
Attendees will:
• Construct learning outcomes
from learning objectives, in
order to develop assessable
learning outcomes for QEP
proposals.
– Learning outcomes formula
– Characteristics of good learning
outcomes
– Example learning outcomes

5. What are learning
outcomes?
• Formal statements that articulate:
– What students are able to do after
instruction
– Why students need to do this
• Objectives vs. Outcomes
• Process/Fluid

6. Why assess?
• It builds evidence for accountability,
accreditation and improvement.
– Show evidence of how well our
students learn.
– Use evidence for continuous
improvement.

7. Simply put
• Know what you are doing
• Know why you are doing it
• Know what students are learning
as a result
• Changing because of that
information

8. Shifting from
• Teaching to learning
• Teaching effectiveness to learning
results
• Private affair to community property

9. Some benefits of learning
outcomes
• select content
• develop of instructional strategy
• develop and select instructional
materials
• construct tests and other instruments for
assessing and evaluating
• improve you as a teacher, and our
overall program

10. Writing Learning
Outcomes
• Learning Outcomes Formula
• Bloom’s Taxonomy
• Characteristics of Good
Learning Outcomes
• Learning Outcomes Exercise
• Write Your Learning Outcomes

11. Theory Into Practice
5 Questions for Instructional Design
1. What do you want the student to be
able to do? (Outcome)
2. What does the student need to know in
order to do this well? (Curriculum)
3. What activity will facilitate the learning?
(Pedagogy)
4. How will the student demonstrate the
learning? (Assessment)
5. How will I know the student has done
this well? (Criteria)
ACRL’s IIL Immersion Summer 2005

12. 1. What do you want the
student to be able to do?
This question asks you to
develop the outcome.
For Example:
Student identifies, consults and
evaluates reference books
appropriate to the topic in
order to locate background
information and statistics.
ACRL’s IIL Immersion Summer 2005

13. Learning Outcomes
Formula
Verb
Great
Or + Why? =
“In Order To”
Learning
Outcomes
Action Phrase
OR
What students need Why do they need to
to know? know this?
“Student identifies, “In Order To” “locate background
consults and evaluates information and
reference books statistics.”
appropriate to the topic”
ACRL’s IIL Immersion Summer 2005

14. Importance of Verbs
• Behavioral Outcomes
– Affective Domain
– Psychomotor Domain
– Cognitive Domain
• Bloom’s Taxonomy

15. Cognitive Domain
• Involves knowledge and the
development of intellectual skills
• Bloom’s Taxonomy
– Hierarchy of objectives according to
cognitive complexity
– Higher-level objectives include, and
are dependant on lower level
cognitive skills

16. Bloom’s Taxonomy
• Knowledge
• Comprehension
• Application
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• Evaluation

17. Bloom’s – Lower Levels
• Knowledge
– Recalling previously learned
information such as facts,
terminology, rules, etc.
– Answers may be memorized or
closely paraphrased from assigned
material.
– Define, list, name, recall

18. Bloom’s – Lower Levels
• Comprehension
– Ability to comprehend the meaning of
material.
– Answers must be in the student’s own
words while still using terminology
appropriate to the course material.
– Explain, summarize, distinguish
between, restate

19. Bloom’s – Lower Levels
• Demonstrate rote or surface learning
• Declarative or Procedural Knowledge
• Answers found in the assigned materials
• 80% of HS teachers test at these levels

20. Bloom’s – Higher Levels
• Application
– Requires recognizing, identifying, or
applying a concept or principle in a new
situation or solving a new problem.
– May require identifying or generating
examples not found in assigned materials.
– Demonstrate, arrange, relate, adapt

21. Bloom’s – Higher Levels
• Analysis
– Ability to break material down into its component
parts and to understand its underlying structure
– May require students to compare and contrast
or explain how an example illustrates a given
concept or principle.
– Require students to identify logical errors or to
differentiate among facts, opinions,
assumptions, hypotheses and conclusions
– Expected to draw relationships between ideas
– Differentiate, estimate, infer, diagram

22. Bloom’s – Higher Levels
• Synthesis
– Opposite of Analysis
– Ability to combine parts to form a new whole; to
synthesize a variety of elements into an original
and significant whole.
– Produce something unique or original
– Solve some unfamiliar problem in a unique way
– Combine, create, formulate, construct

23. Bloom’s – Higher Levels
• Evaluation
– Ability to evaluate a total situation, to judge
the value of material for a certain
purpose, combining elements of all the other
categories and also value judgments based
on defined, fixed criteria.
– The most important part of the answer is the
justification and rationale for the conclusion
– Judge, critique, justify, discriminate

24. Bloom’s – Higher Levels
• Meaningful or deep learning
• Go beyond textual material in that they must be
inferred or extrapolated from the material in the
assigned material.
• Students’ creativity, originality and critical
thinking is required at higher levels
• More authentic than lower levels
– Thinking at this level is more likely to represent
types of performances required in the real world

25. Activity
• Break into groups. You will each be
assigned a level of Bloom’s taxonomy.
• Develop an activity to teach the rest of
us the topic on the next slide using
techniques common to your assigned
level in Blooms.
• You have 5-7 minutes to prepare your
lesson/activity, and then you will
present it to the rest of us.

26. The Pledge of Allegiance

27. Theory Into Practice
5 Questions for Instructional Design
1. What do you want the student to be
able to do? (Outcome)
2. What does the student need to know in
order to do this well? (Curriculum)
3. What activity will facilitate the learning?
(Pedagogy)
4. How will the student demonstrate the
learning? (Assessment)
5. How will I know the student has done
this well? (Criteria)
ACRL’s IIL Immersion Summer 2005

28. 1. What do you want the
student to be able to do?
This question asks you to
develop the outcome.
For Example:
Student identifies, consults and
evaluates reference books
appropriate to the topic in
order to locate background
information and statistics.
ACRL’s IIL Immersion Summer 2005

29. Learning Outcomes
Formula
Verb
Great
Or + Why? =
“In Order To”
Learning
Outcomes
Action Phrase
OR
What students need Why do they need to
to know? know this?
“Student identifies, “In Order To” “locate background
consults and evaluates information and
reference books statistics.”
appropriate to the topic”
ACRL’s IIL Immersion Summer 2005

30. Characteristics of Good
Learning Outcomes
• Measurable/Assessable
• Clear to the student & instructor
• Integrated, developmental, transferable
• Use discipline-specific
competencies/standards as a basis not
an end
• Similar scope and scale
• “In order to” gets to the uniqueness
and real world application of the
learning
• Use a variety of Bloom’s Taxonomy
levels
ACRL’s IIL Immersion Summer 2005

31. Example 1
• Bad Outcome
– Students will name the three types of
rock in order to differentiate among
the three.

32. Example 1
• Good Learning Outcome
– Students will compare and contrast
the characteristics of the three types
of rocks in order to differentiate
among the three.

33. Example 2
• Bad Learning Outcome
– Discover that UT Arlington offers a
welcoming and helpful environment
which can fulfill their
educational, cultural and social needs
in order to recognize the university’s
role in lifelong learning.

34. Example 3
• Bad Outcome
– Use Illiad and Texshare in order to
access materials not available at UT
Arlington Library.

35. Example 3
• Good Outcome
– Utilize retrieval services in order to
obtain materials not owned by UT
Arlington Library.

36. Last Example…I Promise
• Bad Outcome
– Students will construct bibliographies
and in-text references using discipline
appropriate styles in order to
contribute to academic discourse in
their discipline.

37. Last Example…I Promise
• Good Outcome
– Construct bibliographies and in-text
references using discipline
appropriate styles in order to correctly
attribute others' work and ideas.

38. Let’s Write a Learning
Outcome
• We’re taking a friend camping for
the first time (not roughing it too
much).
• What do they need to know?

39. Let’s Write a Learning
Outcome
• We’ll concentrate on how to build a
fire
• Why do we want our friend to be
able to properly build a fire?

40. Let’s Write a Learning
Outcome
• Now let’s write the learning
outcome
• What is our verb (use Bloom’s)?
• Why?

41. Let’s Write an Assignment-
Specific Learning
Outcome
• Pick a major theme or issue from The Kite
Runner as the topic for your essay, discuss
that topic using specific passages from the
book, and relate that topic to at least one other
context. For instance, you may relate the topic
to one or more essays, to personal
experience, and/or to a real-life situation.
Explore the topic in depth by looking for
conflicts, relationships between ideas, and
differing points of view.
Your submission must be 3-5 pages in length, double-
spaced, using Times New Roman font and 1 inch
margins. Use proper MLA style for documentation of
your sources, including parenthetical in-text citations
and a Works Cited page if you used outside sources.

42. Let’s Write an Assignment-
Specific Learning
Outcome
• What does the student need to
know?
• Why do they need to know this?

43. Now the FUN Begins
• You’ll need the information sheet
you completed prior to the
workshop
• Group together similar items from
your list of objectives
• Use Bloom’s taxonomy and the
learning outcomes formula to
create learning outcomes that
address your grouped objectives

44. A Look Into the Future
5 Questions for Instructional Design
1. What do you want the student to be
able to do? (Outcome)
2. What does the student need to
know in order to do this well?
(Curriculum)
3. What activity will facilitate the
learning? (Pedagogy)
4. How will the student demonstrate
the learning? (Assessment)
5. How will I know the student has
done this well? (Criteria)