Description
In Moodle, the Outcomes tool allows instructors to track broad program- and course-level learning outcomes that correspond with specific course learning activities. In general, course outcomes created by the instructor specify what a student must know and do at the end of the course. While most grade subcomponents show student progress over time, outcomes provide a breakdown of the course grade focused on specific levels of knowledge, topics, and context. Although outcomes can be used for every assessment, it can be especially valuable to analyze outcomes during summative assessments, such as exams and major course projects. Outcomes can be factored into grading depending on the course instructor.
The course instructor must input the outcomes that will be used in the course.
Best Practices and Considerations
When writing outcomes for your program or course, consider the following:
Outcomes should be broad in nature so that they can be broken down into module objectives, which we will discuss shortly. Because they address the entirety of the course, these outcomes should be written at a higher Bloom’s knowledge level than module objectives. What does this mean?
For example, a course outcome might state, “Students will design technology to measure radiation in lunar and cislunar conditions.” “Design,” which is high on the Bloom’s scale, can be broken down into lower-level activities, critique current technology, identify possible obstacles, experiment with prototypes, and report findings. These lower-level activities could comprise module-level objectives, which have a narrower focus. This scaffolding of having each course outcome aligned to one or more module objective is a key step in the intentional alignment of a course.
So how do we write course outcomes and module objectives? There are a few basic questions to ask first. These are:
- What do I want students to learn or be able to do?
- Can I connect a specific task or activity to the objective so that learners can demonstrate competence?
- What context can I provide to tell students how the objective will be assessed or observed?
These three questions correspond to the parts of a clear learning outcome or objective: the noun, the action verb, and the context.
The action verb is critical since it tells students what they will be doing. The noun tells them what is being assessed. The context is also important, as it gives students the format of the assessment. When a learning outcome or objective includes an action verb that is linked to an assessment, how the student will demonstrate that they met the outcome, we say that it is measurable.
GROK Articles About Outcomes
Click on the following article to learn more about working with the Outcome tool.
Resources
For more information on writing measurable outcomes, watch or attend the following resources from LSU Online’s Design and Development department.
For more information on the outcomes tool, read the following documentation from Moodle Docs. Note that the documentation does not show the SNAP Theme, but the functionality of the settings is the same. All links will open in a new window.