Planning Ideas

Learning Outcomes & Objectives

What are Learning Outcomes & Objectives?

First ask….

  • What are the major ideas/issues/concepts/skills of your course?
  • What’s the best order to present the knowledge and skills of your course?
  • How can I write effective learning outcomes and objectives?
  • How are learning outcomes/objectives used in course design?
  • How do learning outcomes/objectives link to assessment?

Benefits of Developing Clear Learning Outcomes & Objectives.

They…

  • Identify the main ideas and skills of your course that you will evaluate
  • Communicate the main ideas and skills of your course to your students
  • Focus your students’ learning on the main ideas and skills of your course
  • Focus your teaching on the main ideas and skills of your course
  • Are an integral part of the analysis and design phases of course design
  • Ensure that your teaching is aligned (matched) with the course’s knowledge and skills
  • Ensure that your assessment tools are aligned (matched) with the course’s knowledge and skills

This video reviews the process of backwards design (how learning objectives, assessment tools / teaching strategies are linked), introduces the 3 main types of learning objectives (knowledge-based, skills-based and values-based) then introduces the ALARM (Active, Learner-Centered, Attainable, Relevant, Measurable, Specific) method for writing effective learning objectives.

Let’s Getting Started

Download this Competency document to get more information about learning outcomes and learning objectives. This document aims to interpret the competency/course information that the college gives us about the knowledge and skills of a course. It gives an example using the BJ65 Business Communication Course on how this information can be used to develop learning outcomes and objectives for a course.

Ask Yourself Reflective Questions

Think of your course(s) and re-read the course description given by the college:

  1. What are the essential information/things/tasks that you would want a potential employee (student) to know and be able to do? These will be your learning outcomes
  2. Take one of the these learning outcomes and think about how you will assess that the potential employee (student) can do this thing/task
  3. List all the knowledge and skills the potential employee (student) would need to understand and be able to in order to successfully accomplish the thing/task. These will be your learning objectives

Now we need a bit of information to help us write effective learning outcomes/objectives.
Check out Tips on Writing Learning Outcomes (PDF)

Communicating Your Course Learning Outcomes & Objectives

Make sure to communicate to your students what will be learned in your course. Being able to write clear, detailed and effective learning outcomes and objectives is an essential skill for teachers. Learning outcomes/objectives are developed and written during the analysis and design phases of the course design process. For the student, learning objectives should communicate what will be learned during a course.

Learning objectives allow the teacher to:

  1. identify the key knowledge and skills from a course
  2. design assessment tools that will allow students to show their learning of these knowledge and skills
  3. choose, design and resource instructional strategies that will successfully prepare the students for the assessment tasks
  4. organize the presentation of this information logically

Learning objectives, instructional strategies and assessment tasks should be aligned for a course to effectively facilitate student learning.

Extend Your Learning

These links to two PDFs give a good review of how to write effective learning objectives. They go into quite a lot of detail.