U N I V E R S I T Y  O F  P I T T S B U R G H

 A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh 

Articulating Course Learning Outcomes

By Deborah Polk, Dental Medicine

Photo courtesy of Deborah Polk “Students learned more from the lectures and reading material. This became clear as their performance on the exams improved.”

During my first semester teaching in the School of Dental Medicine, it became clear that the teaching approaches I had experienced as a student were not effective for my students. The students seemed lost and weren’t performing on the exams as well as I would have liked.
I turned to the experts at CIDDE to help me revise the course. I worked with an instructional designer who introduced me to many teaching approaches. I learned about Bloom’s taxonomy and how to articulate my learning objectives using the different levels of the taxonomy. Once I had clearly defined learning objectives, writing exam questions became less difficult. Plus, the students understood what it was I wanted them to focus on. As a result, they learned more from the lectures and reading material. This became clear as their performance on the exams improved.

In addition to working on the learning objectives for each lecture, we also revised the syllabus, considering the course rationale and objectives. These aspects helped to communicate my perspective and expectations to the students more clearly. Moreover, the process of articulating these aspects of the course helped me to clarify in my own mind what I wanted to accomplish with the course and it improved my teaching efforts. It became much easier to identify the content that I should and should not include in the course.

Overall, the experience of working with an instructional designer was incredibly helpful. I use the information I learned with her in every teaching experience I am involved in, not just the particular course we worked on. I cannot emphasize enough how much of a difference in my teaching it has made.

A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh

Center for Instructional Development & Distance Education
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