Course Outcomes

Course Learning Outcomes:  statements of what students should know or be able to do after completing an entire course. 

Well-written course outcomes help the instructor and the students. They provide the instructor with a roadmap for assessment and lesson planning, and they communicate to students what is important.

The ABCD Model for writing  outcomes incorporates different components into your objective. The University of Maryland's Learning Outcomes Research Guide provides an introduction to the ABCD Method. 

Yale's Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning provides examples of outcomes from courses from different disciplines. It also includes recommendations for designing objectives.

Using Bloom's Taxonomy as a resource provides guidance for ensuring you are varying the level of complexity of thought you are requiring of your students. Vanderbilt University's Center for Teaching reviews Bloom's Taxonomy and provides additional information for its utilization. 

Examples of Well-Written Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrate various modes of thesis development (overt, implied, and delayed) and produce essays with an argumentative thesis that focuses the essay for a specific audience and purpose. 

• Compare and contrast the three financial statements, balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flow 

•  Solve gas problems by applying knowledge of the gas laws and kinetic molecular theory. 

Lesson Objectives

Lesson Objectives:  brief statements of what students should know or be able to do after an individual class lesson.  

While course outcomes are statements of what students should know or be able to do after successful completion of a course, learning objectives are statements of what students should know or be able to do after successful completion of an individual lesson or unit. Because lesson objectives focus on smaller units of learning than an entire course, they focus on more narrowly defined content that course outcomes. 

Note:  Use of the terms "outcomes" and "objectives" may vary, and the two terms may be used interchangeably at different institutions. The delineation of "outcomes" and "objectives" above is how the terms are used at ECC. 

Like outcomes, learning objectives help the instructor and the students by providing the instructor with a roadmap for assessment and lesson planning, and they communicate to students what is important.

The ABCD Model for writing  outcomes and objectives incorporates different components into your objective. The University of Maryland's Learning Outcomes Research Guide provides an introduction to the ABCD Method. 

Yale's Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning provides examples of outcomes and objectives  from courses from different disciplines. It also includes recommendations for designing objectives.

Using Bloom's Taxonomy as a resource provides guidance for ensuring you are varying the level of complexity of thought you are requiring of your students. Vanderbilt University's Center for Teaching reviews Bloom's Taxonomy and provides additional information for its utilization. 

Examples of Well-Written Learning Objectives.

• Students will be able to evaluate their classmates’ arguments in a Socratic seminar by taking Cornell notes during each discussion. 

• Students will be able to apply their knowledge of the writing process to a peer editing session in which they provide at least five peers with feedback aligned with the class rubric.

•  After reading “The Tell-Tale Heart,” students will be able to contrast Poe’s tone with another Romantic author in a short expository paragraph.