Re: Interesting piece on Learning Outcomes

[Nicky Didicher <didicher@sfu.ca>]

One of the commenters below the article, Julie Hofmann, is more in line with how I feel about the LOs issue (pasted in below).
Nicky Didicher

"Faculty assess students. It is not unreasonable that we be able to explain how we assess those students. Nor is it unreasonable to be asked to show that we are teaching and assessing towards some sorts of objective, i.e., outcome. [...] 

If a learning outcome stymies teaching and learning, one of two things has happened: the outcome has been badly articulated and needs revising; or the faculty member has not reflected on the outcome when creating assessments. (Or it's some combination of both). Some faculty may find the latter an irritant, but if the stated outcomes don't fit a faculty member's vision of the course, then they shouldn't be the stated outcomes. Change them. It's not rocket science. What do you and your colleagues think it's important that a student in your field be able to do? I'm a historian. My colleagues and I were able to identify a list of things we expected a graduate in history to be able to do if they wanted a degree. Many of them initially were the sort of thing the author and some of the commenters complain about: we want students to understand X. 

Yes, the assessment wonks don't want us to use the word "understand" because it is not objective, and not measurable. I'm in an area where the accreditation agency is notoriously picky about assessment. When we changed the wording from "Students will understand X" to "Students will demonstrate an understanding of X by", the problems went away. So our students no longer "understand major events (or scholarly arguments, or cultural trends, or historical epochs, etc.)"; instead, they "demonstrate an understanding of major events (or whatever) by constructing a clearly argued narrative (or 'placing the primary source in its correct context and analyzing it/using it effectively' , and so on...)." I'm not clear why articulating the ways we know if a student seems to understand something is so problematic. 

In my experience, the greatest problems with Learning Outcomes occur when administrators don't give the support faculty need to work thoughtfully and cooperatively; when administrators focus on the existence of assessment reports, rather than on their content and on giving faculty the time to work together to examine the reports and analyse where any problems lie -- and then give faculty the support to address those problems; and when faculty simply refuse to consider buying into the system, often to the point of undermining their own colleagues' efforts. 

Good faculty have been thinking about outcomes for ages. They haven't always been good at articulating those outcomes, or how they know that the outcomes have been met. Having clearly stated outcomes doesn't preclude teaching beyond the outcomes, either. The secret is to create outcomes and assessments that allow the sort of breadth and exploration that can happen in the best cases. If faculty actually want to do it, it can be done. It's only putting in writing what we've done for ages. It would help if we were asked to do so by people who cared about learning and understood that education is intrinsically good, rather than something measured by cost and utility, but that's unlikely to happen anytime soon."

 


----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Pavsek" <cpavsek@sfu.ca>
To: academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Sent: Friday, 30 November, 2012 11:30:13
Subject: Interesting piece on Learning Outcomes

I have no idea how many people are now on this list; perhaps this email goes out to about 8 people. Who knows. 


In any case, as SFU continues on that seemingly inevitable path toward the world of "learning outcomes" and the "audit culture" that also seemingly inevitably accompanies it, it might be good to at least present some criticisms of learning outcomes. There's an interesting piece in the recent Times Higher Education that presents an alternate vision to that presented by the SFU administration. I agree with much of what it says and especially agree with its closing lines:  


" If individual academics want to use learning outcomes, of course, that is their prerogative. But what we need is a genuinely pluralist academic culture where courses are taught in a manner that engages with issues that are integral to their discipline. Academics are grown-up people who do not need the language police to instruct them about what kind of verbs to use. And students should be treated as grown-ups who can be allowed to embark on a journey of discovery instead of directed to a predetermined destination." 


I remind everyone that there is still time to provide feedback on the recent report on learning outcomes. 


The article:  http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=421958 


The link to provide feedback to the VPA:  http://www.sfu.ca/vpacademic/committees_taskforces/LOAWG/reportloa.html 


best, 
Chris Pavsek 
contemporary arts