Now that you’ve considered who your learners will be and the environment in which teaching and learning will take place, we turn our attention to the pillar of course design, teaching, and learning: learning outcomes.

Identify the essential learning outcomes (LOs)

The course’s intended learning outcomes and your intentions for the course should guide each of the subsequent decisions you make, such as students’ experience, class activities, and technology.

Identify the essential learning outcomes (LOs) for your course; course topics can be used here if you don’t have learning outcomes ready yet. Often, many less important LOs or topics need to be removed due to space and time limitations in the course.

Generally, course learning outcomes are established and approved when courses are developed (or redesigned) for your department’s program as a part of the curriculum. If you are starting to write or rewrite your learning outcomes, consult the Teaching and Innovation team’s learning outcomes guide to help you get started. The team’s Curriculum Development and Review Specialist is also available for one-on-one consultations with faculty.

Divide the learning outcomes into modules

Dividing the LOs into modules, sections, or chapters will break up the course into manageable chunks. Students will need opportunities to hear/see the important information (e.g., short lectures), practice, and receive feedback (e.g., problem sets with answer keys, quizzes, assignments, exams).

Use the Teaching and Innovation team’s course map blueprint template to help you separate your course components into manageable chunks and envision how your course components “fit” and align with your course learning outcomes.

Additional readings and resources

If you choose to transform topics into LOs, here is a learning outcomes guide  from the Teaching and Innovation Team that can help. Book an appointment with a member of the Teaching and Innovation team  by emailing coffeehouse@laurentian.ca for one-on-one assistance!

Up next

In the next chapter, you can use the learning outcomes to decide which aspects need to be achieved synchronously and asynchronously. We will provide specific suggestions as to which tools and strategies to use when sharing content.

Please feel free to contact us at any time with questions, suggestions, and concerns by emailing coffeehouse@laurentian.ca .