Course SLO

Development of Course SLOs | About SLOs | Using Action Verbs | Guidelines & Examples | SLO & Learning Assessment | Approved Courses with SLOs (10/1/09)


The Student Learning Outcomes for a course reflect the level of rigor, critical thinking, and specific skill levels students are expected to achieve as a result of their experience in the course. At Santa Rosa Junior College, the SLOs for a course are listed in the Course Outline of Record (COR) and supported by the course objectives. The SLOs of a course provide the foundation for course assessment. The effectiveness of a course may be determined by measuring or observing students’ achievement of the course SLOs and then analyzing the results.

Development of Course Student Learning Outcomes
The SLOs of a course are usually developed through collegial discussion among faculty who create, revise, and/or teach a course. A Student Learning Outcome is written as a statement of the knowledge, skills, abilities, or values students should acquire in a course. A Student Learning Outcome usually subsumes multiple objectives, allows for assessment, and anticipates the application of learning outside of the classroom or in future educational contexts.

A course may have one to five SLOs, depending on the length and depth of the course itself. SLO statements tend to be more global statements when compared to course objectives, which describe more specific skills or abilities. Both SLOs and objectives have these features in common:
• They refer to what students should be able to do after they have completed the course
(in other words, they are not course assignments);
• They use active verbs that reflect how the learning could be observed or measured (see discussion of Bloom’s Taxonomy below); 
• They emphasize the higher levels of critical thinking involved in the course, though the SLOs usually reflect the highest levels;
• They are supported by the content of the course and the kinds of assignments
students complete.

When faculty discuss and develop the SLOs for a course, they should focus on the broader applications of the knowledge and skills that students will be able to use if they fully learn the content and concepts of the course. It helps to envision exactly what the student would be able to do in the real world or the next level of the program after completion of the course.

About SLOs in the Course Outline of Record
If the COR was last reviewed before Fall 2007, there is only a single list under “Objectives.” When updating the course, faculty must separate out the SLOs from the objectives. That revision process usually involves creating new statements for both SLOs and objectives.

For a new course, SLOs should be listed first and the supporting objectives determined after that. Since the term “Student Learning Outcome” implies a culminating ability, SLOs are listed as statements with no preface, while the list of objectives is headed with “Upon completion of the course, students will be able to.”

Using Action Verbs
When writing Student Learning Outcomes and course objectives, many instructors find it helpful to refer to a list of words representing levels of thinking. A classic reference is Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains. Another useful list with a slightly different approach is Anderson and Krathwohl’s Taxonomy 2000, which addresses the affective and psychomotor domains and designates creating as the highest level of cognitive thinking, as opposed to Bloom’s evaluation. There are numerous websites that cover learning domains. Here is one good example: http://www.uwsp.edu/education/lwilson/curric/newtaxonomy.htm

Guidelines and Examples
Here are some guidelines for writing a clear and well-structured Student Learning Outcome statement.

• The statement should describe what the students will be able to do at the end of the course. The phrase “Students will be able to…” or “Students will…
  is optional, as long as the meaning is clear. Some instructors prefer just to start with the action verb (e.g., “Write an essay…,” “Create a website…”).
• The verbs should reflect higher levels of thinking (from Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation columns). Verbs do not necessarily have to be on Bloom’s or Krathwohl’s list, but they should still represent critical thinking. For example, “recognize” and “identify” are lower levels of thinking and would be appropriate for objectives, but not outcomes. More appropriate verbs for SLOs would be words like “analyze” or “compose.”
•  The outcome statement should lend itself to assessment, but the specific method of assessment and/or degree of achievement should not be stated explicitly. For example, SLOs using words like “organize” or “critique” could be assessed through observation, writing, a portfolio, a project, etc., but the assessment tool itself does not need to be stated.
• SLOS referring to the affective domain still need to be demonstrated in some sort of active way. That is, a student may “understand” or “appreciate” something but would need to express this through, for instance, through a job-site interaction, a critique, a well-formed argument, etc.
• SLO statements may be global, but the language can be fairly direct. For instance, an SLO such as “Students will be able to demonstrate the ability to identify and explain the historical context of a Shakespearian work” may be stated more concisely as “Students will identify and explain the historical context of a Shakespearian work” or simply, “Identify and explain the historical context of a Shakespearian work.”

Below are examples of SLO statements from a variety of courses. Each example is a single SLO excerpted from a longer list in the Course Outline. Most courses that were approved Fall 2007 or later have SLOs listed in the course outline; these may be accessed through “Course Outlines” in faculty portals. Notice that there is some variation in the way the SLOs are stated due to department choice of wording for clarity.

English 1A
Develop a multi-paragraph persuasive essay containing a thesis statement supported by details and evidence organized in unified, coherent, and adequately developed paragraphs.

Dental Hygiene 82A
Students will correctly interpret symptoms and select appropriate intervention to manage patient fear, anxiety, and/or pain in a dental clinic setting.

Nutrition
Analyze a documented nutritional problem, determine a strategy to correct the problem, and write a draft nutritional policy addressing the broader scope of the problem.

Organic Chemistry
Students will be able to synthesize (on paper and in the laboratory) and purify a specified product from a list of given starting materials, while following common safety regulations and procedures.

Office Communications and Interpersonal Skills
Assess and recognize an audience in order to develop appropriate communications both orally and in writing that are sensitive to the audience's needs, values, and point of view.

ESL for Child Development Introduction to Early Childhood
Use English to evaluate the personal qualities of an effective early childhood educator.

Classical Music Appreciation
Students will describe and relate how the syntax and structure of Classical music has changed over time relative to cultural circumstances.

Philosophy of Peace and Nonviolent Action
Students will be able to form reasoned and well-informed judgments on current issues involving the development of peace and the nonviolent resolution of conflict both within and between individuals and social groups.

Student Learning Outcomes and Learning Assessment Projects 
When discussing and composing SLOs, the department should remember that these outcomes should lend themselves to Learning Assessment Projects. That is, SLOs should be thoughtfully stated so that, when a department is ready to assess student learning for that course, the Student Learning Outcomes listed in the COR are relevant and useful. Furthermore, the action verbs used in the SLO statements should generally indicate how students’ achievement of the outcome could be demonstrated.

For example, here are some types of assessment that might be used for some of the SLOs listed above.