Why use Learning Outcomes?

There’s no ‘one size fits all’ to teach­ing and learn­ing. At the same time, when stu­dents sign up for a course, they want an idea of what they will learn. Equal­ly, as instruc­tors, we ben­e­fit from hav­ing a road map to guide us.

We may decide to take detours, side roads on the way, but the gen­er­al direc­tion for both stu­dents and instruc­tors will remain the same. For exam­ple, the des­ti­na­tion for a course might be France. Some stu­dents may end up in Paris and oth­ers in a vil­lage in Nor­mandy, but they all will hope­ful­ly end up in France.

Learn­ing out­comes are a tool we can use to describe to stu­dents the desired learn­ing des­ti­na­tion with an indi­ca­tion of:

• how they will trav­el
• what they’ll be expect­ed to do along the way
• and where they’ll end up

…we ben­e­fit from hav­ing a road map to guide us