Learning Outcomes:

Lisa Brewster
What are student-learning outcomes?
Learning outcomes are statements of what is expected that a student will be able to do as
a result of a learning activity. The keyword is do and the key need in drafting learning
outcomes is to use active verbs. Outcomes are usually expressed as knowledge, skills, or
attitudes.
 Learning outcomes help instructors more precisely to tell students what is
expected of them. By doing this, educationalists assert that they:
help students learn more effectively. They know where they stand and the
curriculum is made more open to them.
 make it clear what students can hope to gain from following a particular course or
lecture.
 help instructors to design their materials more effectively by acting as a template
for them.
 help instructors select the appropriate teaching strategy, for example lecture,
seminar, student self-paced, or laboratory class. It obviously makes sense to
match the intended outcome to the teaching strategy.
 help instructors more precisely to tell their colleagues what a particular activity is
designed to achieve.
 assist in setting examinations based on the materials delivered.
 ensure that appropriate assessment strategies are employed.

Three types of Learning Outcomes: Course, Program, and Institutional

Course Learning Outcomes:

The starting point for designing a course of study is determining what its intended
outcomes are to be. Why should students take this class? What will they gain from it?
Answering these questions will lead you to the successive questions of how to assess
whether students have “gotten it” and how you can best proceed to organize and present
the content so that students are more likely to “get it.”
Every course should have clearly stated goals and objectives. Course goals express in
broad terms what you hope to impart as a result of teaching this topic with your approach.
Course objectives can be written for the whole course and/or for individual units of
study…right down to an individual lesson or segment within a lesson.

Program Learning Outcomes:

Faculty members design outcomes for their programs/departments by discussing what
they believe is essential to student learning in their disciplines. Usually those discussions
are rooted in the skills and knowledge that faculty members teach in their own courses.
Once faculty members have agreed on program/departmental outcomes for student
learning, they can use those outcomes as guides for articulating new or revised learning
outcomes for their own courses.

Institutional Learning Outcomes:

Institutional learning outcomes are designed by the college as a whole, taking into
account the role that both instruction and student services play in increasing a student’s
success at their institution. When choosing institutional learning outcomes the college
Learning Outcomes:
Lisa Brewster
needs to consider what skills students should have attained from attending their
institution. This may require the institution to interview the community to better
formulate appropriate learning outcomes. However, aside from the community, the
college can turn to other institutions for guidance, as most have begun to formulate
institutional learning outcomes. Remember, it is best to keep the list of learning
outcomes manageable with no more than 8 objectives. This will give the college the
scope needed to properly ensure accurate success of the student as well as the assessment
technique.

Another item to consider when developing institutional learning outcomes is the degree
each is addressed or level of mastery expected from a student in a particular class. For
instance, while a student is exposed to writing in several courses, there are different
degrees of exposure in the different courses (i.e. an English class teaches writing
differently than a history class, but both may address the importance of writing).