Teachers, students, moderators…who truly utilises and benefits from learning outcomes?
Learning outcomes – Learning outcomes can be described as a statement of what a learner is expected to know, understand, and/or be able to demonstrate after completion of an individual module.[1] They can also be described as an assessment tool that allows a teacher to quantify their impact on student achievement as measured within the parameters of a particular academic or elective standard.[2]
In their current state, many students do not understand learning outcomes and how they relate to the unit outcomes. As a technical member of staff, I also struggled to understand them – until I watched the UAL assessment criteria video. The explanations were clear and concise, with aligning imagery and a catchy phrase. When viewing this next to the current learning outcomes there is a sense of emptiness, covered in the mist of technical language that requires decoding.
Davies, A (2012) says that terms such as “’explain’ and ‘analyse’….are regarded as ‘divergent’ and as such do not invite one appropriate answer but a range of possibilities.” And that “the insistence that learning outcomes should be sufficiently clear ‘to be measurable’ has not helped those subject areas, such as the creative arts.” Although I agree that these terms do not fully acknowledge the many outcomes that can derive from these terms, I do believe they have a purpose. Art and design courses face the issue of personal taste and preference clouding judgement. Many art and design tutors find themselves battling against their personal preference when assessing student work. The process of creating learning objectives helps course leaders to break down the elements required to fulfil the brief and creates clear guidelines for those assessing.
But what about students? These very clear guidelines should help students to understand what is expected of them. However, this not the case. Many students are not familiar with these terms and struggle to absorb the information through such language. How can we break down and present learning objectives in a way that students understand?
Davies, A (2012) says “Briefs and briefings are familiar in art and design along with tutorials, interim crits and feedback forums. It is during these supportive scenarios that art and design students formulate their intentions and actions and come to understand what ‘imagination’, ‘creativity’, ‘risk-taking’, etc, (the very terms regarded as potentially ambiguous) actually mean for them.” Tutorials and crits are a great environment for students to gain understanding on what is expected of them, particularly in the areas of knowledge, process and realisation. However, these supportive scenarios tend to focus more on the project themes and physical outcomes, rather than the communication of these ideas. Many students leave these supportive scenarios not understanding how the application of these skills can be utilised to evidence learning.
The UAL assessment criteria video is a great example of how context and meaning can be brought into learning objectives. The use of familiar language, related imagery, and text, breaks down the information and communicates to are range of learning styles. Perhaps briefings should be utilised to reinforce learning objectives, using a range of activities to connect the project themes and unit outcomes to the learning outcomes. A more interactive briefing style combined with the UAL assessment criteria video placed in each Moodle unit would reinforce these ideas, creating regular exposure to the explanation of these terms. It would also help students understand what they are being assessed on.
It’s hard to say whether regular exposure to learning objectives would improve student learning or reduce student creativity in an aim to achieve grades, but bringing clarity to student learning and assessment is a step in the right direction.
[1] Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (October, 2014) ‘The Frameworks for Higher Education Qualifications of UK Degree-Awarding Bodies’
[2] Wikipedia (2022) ‘Student Learning Objectives’