Catherine Wehlburg, Ph.D. Office for Assessment & Quality Enhancement

 Student learning outcomes (SLOs) are statements that specify ◦ what students will know, ◦ be able to do or ◦ be able to demonstrate when they have completed or participated in a program/activity/course/project.  Outcomes are usually expressed as knowledge, skills, attitudes or values.

 What you want your students to know at the end of a course, program, or major  What you want your students to understand at the end of a course, program, or major  What you want your students to have the ability to do at the end of a course, program, or major

 Communicate expectations to learners  Act as a template for course design  Guide selection/design of appropriate assessments

 Allow educators to match teaching strategies to stated outcomes  Allow faculty, staff, and Institutional researchers to assess the impact of instruction  Clearly communicate graduates’ skills to prospective employers  Provide benchmarks for formative, summative and prior learning assessment

 A course, program, or major should have as many outcomes as necessary to clearly reflect what students will learn.  Ideally, each course, program, or major should have 1-5 learning outcomes.

 Student Learning Behavior-Knowledge, skill, or attitude to be gained  The Method of Assessment- conditions of performance  Criteria for achievement- the levels of acceptable performance

From Peter Drucker,  Specific -Clear and definite terms describing the abilities, knowledge, values, attitudes, and performance  Measurable -It is feasible to get data: data are accurate and reliable; it can be assessed in more than one way  Aggressive and Attainable -The outcome has the potential to move the program or unit forward  Results – oriented -Describe what standards are expected from students or the functional area being assessed  Time-bound -Describe a specified time period for accomplishing the outcome

Step 1 Faculty/Staff Meeting or form a committee and begin brainstorming about what an ideal student/graduate should know, understand, or have the ability to do. Step 2 Draft a list of outcomes based on the discussion from the “ideal student/graduate” discussion Step 3 List appropriate student learning outcomes on every course syllabus

Step 4 Gather and report feedback from faculty, staff, and students on how well the outcomes have been addressed. Step 5 Assess student learning (assignments, projects, quizzes, etc.)

Step 6 Meet with faculty and staff at the end of the semester of academic year to discuss data and revise the list of outcomes, teaching strategies, and curriculum. Step 7 Repeat steps as often as needed.

Formulate statements of intended learning outcomes Develop or select assessment measures Create experiences leading to outcomes Discuss and use assessment results to improve learning

 Benjamin Bloom - formulated a classification of "the goals of the educational process".  Three "domains" of educational activities were identified. ◦ Cognitive Domain, involves knowledge and the development of intellectual attitudes and skills. ◦ The other domains are the Affective Domain and the Psychomotor Domain

 Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives  Developed by Benjamin Bloom in the 1950’s  Means of expressing qualitatively different kinds of thinking  Adapted for classroom use as a planning tool  Continues to be one of the most universally applied models

 Provides a way to organize thinking skills into six levels, from the most basic to the higher order levels of thinking  1990s- Lorin Anderson (former student of Bloom) revisited the taxonomy  As a result, a number of changes were made (Pohl, 2000, Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn, pp. 7-8)

 Evaluation  Synthesis  Analysis  Application  Comprehension  Knowledge o Creating o Evaluating o Analyzing o Applying o Understanding o Remembering (Pohl, 2000, Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn, p. 8)

The student will be able to (specific student behavior) ______________________________________________________ as measured by (conditions of performance – could include time frame) ______________________________________________________ at the ______________________________________ level (performance criteria).