Constructing Learning Objectives
Learning outcomes explicitly state what we want students to know, understand, or be able to do as a result of completing their chosen course.
Learning outcomes should:
1) Represent real goals
Paul Ramsden suggests that, rather than describing facts or procedures, we should describe concepts that students need to understand as well as relations between those concepts. Says Ramsden, if learning outcomes "concentrate largely on procedures and facts, students will inevitably receive the message that higher order outcomes (including both an understanding of key concepts and the development of complex skills such as a systematic approach to experimentation or historical argument) are less important than an ability to categorise and reproduce disconnected pieces of knowledge."(Learning to Teach in Higher Education, Routledge, London, 1992, p.133)
2) Be clearly expressed so that their meanings are explicit
3) Place academic skills or personal learning in the context of the particular subject discipline
Different disciplines have different understandings of common academic terms such as "critical thinking", "analysis", "communication skills". It is important to be clear about what characterises, for example, "critical thinking" in your discipline.
4) Include a description of the kind of performances by which achievement will be judged (either within the outcome or in an associated set of assessment criteria)
Susan Toohey suggests setting out the assessment tasks and the criteria by which these will be marked. (Designing courses for higher education, Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press, Buckingham [England] and Philadelphia, PA, 1999)
5) Be pitched at the right level to specify the complexity and/or significance of the situation
Learning outcomes should clearly reflect the increase in demand for students to demonstrate competence. That is, the learning outcomes throughout successive levels of a course or program ought to indicate a greater requirement for the student to demonstrate higher levels of contextualisation of theory to practice, the management of ambiguity and complexity, and more complex practical situations.
6) Be memorable and limited in number
Most courses might aim for five to ten outcomes.