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

2.  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.

3.  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

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

5.  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

6.  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.

7.  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

8. From Peter Drucker, 19548  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

9. 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

10. 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.)

11. 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.

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

13.  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

14.  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

15.  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)

16.  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)

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