Staff Development - Learning Outcomes - What are they?

Learning Outcomes- What are they?

A learning outcome is a gathering and analysis of evidence of student performance matched against the expected ability. Assessment is measuring those outcomes and improving offerings based on results of data and analysis. It differs from a behavioral objective in the following manner. A behavioral objective is a prediction of what the successful learner can do. A learning outcome is an actual measurement of that learning.

Isn't this redundant with grading?

Assessment to improve teaching and learning is certainly related to testing students and assigning grades for their performance, but it is by no means identical with that process. There are some fundamental contrasts. First, when faculty test and assign grades, they are looking for demonstrations of learning achieved; in other words, tests and grades are primarily summative. Assessment, conversely, looks for achievement but also monitors the learning process; it is both summative and formative. Second, in testing and assigning grades, the focus is on judging the student's work; in assessment, however, faculty members turn the focus on themselves as well as students to ask how curriculum and instruction can become more effective, and to search purposefully for information that will lead to improvement.
Excerpted from "Evaluating Learning in Individual Courses", by Barbara D. Wright, pgs. 4 & 5

Methods of Assessment

Portfolios. Portfolios are collections of student work. May contain examples of a student's best work in a variety of forms, showing the student's development over time. Often, the portfolio is focused to show a particular kind of intellectual development, say in writing skills, critical thinking, or ability to carry, out a variety of library research tasks.

Capstones and Senior Projects. The capstone, as the name suggests, is a course that comes at the conclusion of a student's program of study and caps prior coursework. Its purpose is, first, to provide an opportunity for students to synthesize what they have learned in their major, and perhaps to fill in gaps; and second, to apply what they have learned in some kind of project appropriate to the discipline or professional program in which they have majored. The impact of the capstone, both as a learning experience for students and as an assessment opportunity for faculty, can be increased if products are displayed publicly for students and faculty in the campus community, and if external judges are brought in to help critique student efforts.

Performance Assessment. Activities that are either real performances or realistic simulations. Such activities provide important opportunities for practice and feedback for the student, and an opportunity for faculty to see how effectively they are preparing students on both theoretical and applied levels. Tasks for performance-based assessment may range form the fairly predictable (for example, oral presentations, live interviews, or debates) to more creative academic activities to presenting music or dance recitals, catering an event, teaching a class, interacting with clients in human service settings, repairing a malfunctioning automobile or carrying out in-basket exercises in accounting or office management.  Such activities, real or simulated, call upon students' knowledge of their field and require on-the-spot critical thinking, a problem solving, creativity, judgment, ability to function under pressure, and other skills or personal attributes that are essential in the workplace.

Student Self-Assessment. Self-assessment provides an opportunity for students to assess their own performance, to reflect on the learning process, and to become fully conscious of the changes and growth they have undergone. Self-assessment may range from questionnaires or simple checklists of accomplishments and facts learned to conferences or interviews about performance to various kings of self-reports; brief written descriptions, journal entries, learning narratives, or elaborate reflective essays. (This portion only from Waluconis, C.J.M. "Student Self-Evaluation." In T.W. Banta and Associates, Making a Difference: Outcomes of a Decade of Assessment in Higher Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.)

Classroom Assessment. Variety of techniques for eliciting information from students about what they know and how they are experiencing the course, day to day, Classroom Assessment emerged from tow simple yet profound insights; first, the students were by far the best source of feedback to an instructor about whether students are learning what the instructor is trying to teach in a class; and second, that regular use of such feedback could improve both teaching and learning.

Excerpted from "Evaluating Learning in Individual Courses", by Barbara D. Wright, pgs.6-11