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L&S Advice for Departments: Collecting and reviewing learning outcomes (for the expedited project)
Below is some high-level advice to help departments think through what is the best way to approach collecting and review course learning outcomes in your department for the expedited project. The specific approaches you choose will depend on the culture, governance procedures, and expectations in your department.
(1) Starting the Expedited Collection process for Course Learning Outcomes
- Review L&S Advice for Departments, which provides information about the scope of the CLO Expedited project.
- Contact Sara Stephenson, in L&S TLA, when the department are ready to start the process.
- Sara will provide the department with a simple learning outcome collection tool. The tool will include the courses that are the focus of the expedited project, and important information about them
- ONLY courses without learning outcomes in Lumen can be part of this project. Courses that already have them cannot be revised by this process.
(2) Determine how the department will collect learning outcomes for your courses.
- Identify who will be collecting course learning outcomes and adding them to the collection tool.
- Determine how you will collect them. Examples: online form (Qualtrics or Google), online spreadsheets, more simple methods like email.
- Think about how to prompt instructors for the specific information you need (for example, the undergrad/grad/both labels for courses with the graduate attribute).
(3) Determine departmental expectations and review process
- At a minimum, learning outcomes must meet L&S Guidelines for Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs)
- Determine if the department has additional expectations or advice for instructors beyond this.
- Determine what will be the department's review process. This may be a committee or faculty and/or instructional staff identified by the department.
- Anticipate that some learning outcomes will need revisions as a result of departmental review, or that some faculty or instructors will need help. Determine what faculty or instructional staff member(s) can help with these issues.
- Anticipate internal coordination that may be necessary for large multi-section and multi-instructor courses (to ensure the one set of learning outcomes submitted is applicable to every offering.)
(4) Hold a departmental meeting to discuss the initiative, and the departmental expectations
- Provide advice on best practices on writing learning outcomes, as well as any department expectations. You can find helpful resources here: L&S Guidelines for Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) Some of your faculty or staff will likely be the best resources.
- Provide information about the L&S Guidelines for Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs)
- Go over how learning outcomes will be reviewed at the department level, so instructors know they may receive some feedback from the department.
(5) Review, revise, and approve and approve collected learning outcomes
- As learning outcomes are collection, review them per the process determined by the department.
- Work with instructors to revise any learning outcomes that don't meet departmental expectations or the L&S Guidelines for Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs)
- Please coordinate with cross-listed departments on cross-listed courses to ensure the other departments agree they are appropriate.
(6) Submit completed collection tool to L&S TLA
- When your departmental spreadsheet is complete and approved, please contact Sara Stephenson at sara.stephenson@wisc.edu.
- Sara will work with you if any learning outcomes don't meet L&S Guidelines for Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs)
Additional Resources
- For questions or help along the way, contact Sara Stephenson, sara.stephenson@wisc.edu
- Helpful webpages:
- L&S Guidelines for Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs)[Link for document 126969 is unavailable at this time]
- Reference verb lists that other groups have published for ideas to describe learning at the level in your course (like this verb list)
- The L&S IDC also has advice for writing quality learning outcomes