Evaluating the impact of educational goals at SFU

Educational goals explore how SFU is working for students, but how are educational goals working for SFU?

Educational goals, or EGs, offer a framework to help programs identify and assess what their graduating students will know and be able to do. At SFU, EGs for programs were introduced in 2013 as part of the external review cycle for academic departments. 

• For information about SFU's institutional-level educational goals, which are meant to capture our commitments to and aspirations for undergraduate education, visit the AVPLT's Educational Goals at SFU page.

Ten years later, faculty leading program-level EG processes are reporting that the outcomes have been invaluable for their units.  

Updating program requirements and integrating EDI

According to Ryan Dill, senior lecturer and associate chair, operations, in the Department of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology, said the EG process gave them important insights on what and how material is being taught.

“It has helped us identify ways to better achieve what matters to us as a group and to do so through a data-driven approach. For example, one of our goals is that graduating students can 'probe current research within one or more subdiscipline.' Through the curriculum mapping process we learned that there was a gap here, because students weren’t necessarily taking the classes where we start using research papers, so how could they learn this skill? We changed our elective requirements to address this  ... Another big insight that we gained from the data-gathering phase was that our department has a lot of work to do in terms of introducing our students to EDI and Indigenization concepts, and so one of our faculty members is working right now on how to integrate those frameworks into BPK courses and our teaching culture.”

Good for student learning 

Dill adds that in addition to helping inform program decisions, sharing the goals with students can give them more agency over their learning.

“The goals aren’t prescriptive because faculty approach them in whatever way makes sense for their teaching style, but what this consistency means is that across the department we are using the same language and descriptions for what we want our students to learn. This means we do a better job of helping students understand why they are doing all this work and empower them to take a more active role in navigating their learning journey.”

A key building block in program development

Tara Holland, senior lecturer at the School of Environmental Science and Department of Geography, notes that the process is playing a key role as they build a new environment program.

“The Environmental Science program has undergone major changes since the last time the curriculum was mapped, including developing new streams and new courses that have come along with new faculty members. We've recently redeveloped our Educational Goals, and I know that the curriculum mapping process will help us to get the bigger picture of the program, identifying where there may be gaps, and what courses may still be needed to address those goals.”  

Illuminating why  

For Sheri Fabian, university lecturer in the School of Criminology, one of the most important outcomes of the EGs process was simply understanding the value and purpose of the many programs and certificates her unit offered. 

“We have so many different pathway options for students in criminology, majors, joint majors, double majors, minors, and certificates. Coming in as the undergraduate associate director, I wanted to understand why we had them. Some had been in place for decades, but their value wasn’t clear. The educational goals process allowed us to finally understand their purpose so that we could make informed decisions moving forward on the pathways that we offer our students.”

 For more information about unit educational goals, including the Educational Goals Data Assessment Toolkit and reporting templates, go to the Provost’s Educational Goals website.

For support developing and assessing your educational goals, contact Learning Experiences Assessment and Planning at leap@sfu.ca.

For support implementing curricular changes resulting from your educational goals assessment—such as changing assignments, redesigning courses or modifying course sequences—contact the Centre for Educational Excellence at ceehelp@sfu.ca.

For assistance with other aspects of the external review process, contact Glynn Nicholls, Director, Academic Planning and Quality Assurance, at gnicholl@sfu.ca.