Assessing Course Outcomes
Learning Objectives
At the end of this section, you should be able to:
- Describe why assessment is used for teaching & learning.
- Explain the difference between assessing traditional and open course materials.
Assessment is an integral part of the education process, a method used as a barometer for what changes may be necessary to improve teaching and learning. Assessment is not always a simple process, so it can help to get some support understanding key concepts.
Assessment in the Classroom
Assessment can occur at any time during or after a course. It is recommended that instructors assess their course regularly, but especially when incorporating new techniques or course materials for the first time. The National Research Council describes the assessment process as a constantly evolving enterprise:
“What is important is that assessment is an ongoing activity, one that relies on multiple strategies and sources for collecting information that bears on the quality of student work and that then can be used to help both the students and the teacher think more pointedly about how the quality might be improved.”[1]
One popular method of assessing a course is to investigate whether the learning outcomes you selected for the course have been met.
Learning Outcomes
Elhabashy defines Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) as
“the specific observable or measurable results that are expected subsequent to a learning experience. These outcomes may involve knowledge (cognitive), skills (behavioral), or attitudes (affective) that provide evidence that learning has occurred as a result of a specified course, program activity, or process.”[2]
These learning outcomes are used as benchmarks for assessing student learning and, by proxy, your own teaching. Perhaps the most important type of SLOs are Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs). CLOs are the final outcomes that an instructor expects their class to have gained once they leave a course.[3] These should be measurable items, outcomes for which you can create effective assessments.
Anytime you adjust your syllabus, course schedule, or learning materials, it can be helpful to consult your CLOs to ensure that the new structure you are making for your course is able to accommodate the needs of learners and facilitate the development of your learning outcomes.
CLO Example from Library 160: Information Literacy
After completing this course, students will:
- recognize how information creation, dissemination, and the research process can impact what is available on a given topic;
- recognize that information has value and identify how the information you produce is used online;
- appropriately relate information needs to search strategies, tools, and types of information sources, including recognizing and interpreting different types of citations;
- appropriately use the web for research, including critical evaluation of information;
- adhere to academic integrity policies, including those on plagiarism