Have you got some time for professional development over the holiday period? Or do you have colleagues or design teams working on course designs over the holiday period?
Anyone who has ever tried to assess or teach to poorly learning outcomes, and then tried to defend their practices or results, will tell you that getting it right at the offset saves a huge amount of effort and heartache.
Intended Learning Outcomes are the foundations of any sound well-aligned course and programme design. Being able to create effective well-structured learning outcome is a valuable skill required of all learning designers, faculty and quality officers.
I have created a short, self-study, course hosted on a Moodle instance. The full course will take between up to 10 hours at a leisurely pace but is designed to allow you to navigate your way through it as you please. You are welcome to dip in and out. The course complements the book ‘Writing Good Learning Outcomes and Objectives’. (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0473657929/)
Join the free course entitled ‘Designing Effective Intended Learning Outcomes’ at https://sijen.net/courses
This six-minute screencast (6’06”) is a top-level set of guidelines for developing effective teaching materials. For some, it may feel like going over well-worn ground, for others it may provide pause for thought. Rationalising what constitutes learning materials seems superficially straight-forward but when one considers the different institutional interpretations of what represents ‘direct’ learning versus ‘delf-directed’ learning it soon becomes apparent that judgement is needed even here.
These resources from 2013-2017 are being shared to support colleagues new to teaching online in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Strategic Directions in Higher, Vocational and Professional Education: Exploring Contexts
Exploring Context
Institutional Context
Tertiary providers are increasingly expected to deliver ‘work-ready’ graduates. This is a challenge when we must acknowledge that many graduates will begin a career, in a year’s time or in the three years, that does not exist today (Susskind, R., & Susskind, D., 2017). Identifying the competency frameworks within our disciplines and those of our professional colleagues is a good place to start (Atkinson, 2015). We can then identify a range of graduate attributes that will underpin our programme outcomes and inform the development of real-world assessment.
Challenging Our Assumptions
It is critically important to challenge our assumptions whenever we contemplate introducing any new courses or programmes into our portfolios.
Whether you are designing an individual course or an entire programme, it is important to ‘future-proof’ it to the greatest extent possible. To ensure that it is consistent and logical. If one sees individual courses as self-contained ‘units of learning’ with their own outcomes and assessment, you risk creating problems later on, for course substitutions, updating and student continuity
It is important to question all of our assumptions about the context into which our learning design is intended fit. Despite the fact that you may feel you know your learning context intimately the chances are there will be some contextual evolution. Take the time to go through these questions, if only to confirm your assumptions.
Regardless of whether you are charged with designing an entire degree-award, a programme or an individual course, you will be doing so within an institutional context. Validating learning is a responsibility of approved degree-awarding institutions in the UK and many countries too, although some have regional or national validation processes (www.inqaahe.org). Regulations vary marginally between contexts but they are remarkably consistent in their aspirations despite different levels of detail being required.
You should design your course or programme with reference to the academic regulations and policies and practices implemented by your institution. But, it is important to avoid copying existing learning on the basis that they will automatically be suitable for validation. The regulatory framework also evolves over time, it adjusts over time in response to the dynamic dialogue between innovative course designers and those responsible for institutional quality assurance. Never copy and paste!
You might want to convene a course team and ask:
Context
Questions
Course / Module
What credit weighting is my course expected to carry?
At what Level is my course intended to be taught?
Is it intended to assess the same course at different levels?
Where in the programme sequence is my course intended to appear?
Is my course intended to flexible enough to be aligned to multiple programmes
Programme
Is my Programme divided into Stages, are there multiple exit points?
What are the naming conventions within my Programme?
Department
Where does the academic management of the learning sit?
School/Faculty
Which School will oversee the quality processes associated with this learning?
Are there graduate attributes at a School level?
University
How does this learning align with the strategic objectives of the University?
National Quality Assurance Context
Once you have a sense of how your learning design might conceivably fit into the institutional context, but before anything is regarded as fixed, it is prudent to review external contextual influences on learning design. One of the most important is the national, regional or state context.
In the United Kingdom, for example, this oversight is provided by the Quality Assurance Agency (qaa.ac.uk) or QAA. This section is illustrative of the kinds of questions you will need to be asking yourself..
The UK Quality Code for Higher Education is a web-based resource with printable PDFs (qaa.ac.uk) that provides a comprehensive structural guide as to how learning designs should be interpreted. It does not provide a design template, rather it functions more accurately as an evaluative framework. Part A of the code is the most pertinent to the design process at this moment. There are four themes that UK course and programme designers need to consider:
Themes
Design Questions
Levels
At what Level is the programme’s named award to be made (Graduation level)? In the UK these levels are defined in the Framework for Higher Education Qualifications
Qualification Characteristics
Broad guidance as to the distinguishing characteristics of specific named awards.
Credit Framework
Convention determines that certain exit awards have a certain number of credits associated with them. Credit is often defined through the concept of ‘notional student hours’ which might, for example, suggest that 1 credit equates to 10 hours of study. This measurement should include everything the student does, including assessment.
Subject Benchmarks
Disciplines, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, may have subject benchmarks associated with them. These provide valuable conventional guidance on what is anticipated to be learned by students under specific discipline, or subject, headings.
These may closely relate to professional criteria which is dealt with next.
Professional Accreditation and Employment Trends
Now you know your course or programme is going to fit into your institutional profile and you are assured that it will meet the quality assurance criteria, you need to ask yourself ‘why would a student want to do this course‘?
Given the design process is likely to take several months and it may take a year or two before you enrol first students; the reality is your Postgraduate students will probably be graduating in two years at the earliest, your Undergraduates students in 4 years; a great deal can change.
It is important to build into your design and review processes, some form of environmental horizon scanning. This may exist in your practice already but where it doesn’t it is worth instituting. Gathering White Papers from commercial partners or competitors, clients, employers as well as press clippings and exploring changes in the direction that your profession or discipline may be heading should be the focus of some course team debate.
For more on horizon scanning, you may want to explore this UK government resource.
There is clearly also value in sharing your early programme and module designs with representatives from the professions or disciplines that your graduates are intended to graduate into. It’s often a good idea to do this very early on in the process, not to ask for validation of your designs, but to capture the widest possible intelligence on future directions.
Here are some basic questions, but you should explore as a course team those questions that seem more appropriate to your evolving context.
Professional Accreditation
Competency Frameworks
What competency frameworks (apprenticeship standards) and professional body guidelines exist in my discipline?
If there is no national guidance, what about international guidance that might be indicative of trends?
Ethical Standards
Are there globally recognised ethical standards in my discipline?
What internationally agreed accords are under development?
Anticipated Changes
Are competitors working on alternative offerings such as two-year degrees or new degree apprenticeships.?
Employment Trends
Globalisation vs Localisation
How is my profession or discipline evolving over time, are there identifiable trends?
How important is language ability or digital skills?
Automation / Systematisation
How much of my discipline or profession is data-driven, or knowledge-based, and therefore more prone to automation?
On the contrary, are there inter-personal or affective skills that distinguish my discipline that is likely to require personal presence?
Anticipated Changes
What are the big ideas in my discipline?
Are there new Internet applications that take away part of what has traditionally been seen as a distinguishing feature of my discipline?
Scholarship Agenda
It is natural for course teams to be intimately familiar with the scholarship that underpins the ‘content’ that they intend to deliver to students. Harder for most course teams is to get some distance from their own practice and to take a ‘bird’s eye view’ of their design as it emerges.
Again, it is important to be sensitive to the evolving discipline landscape. The best way to do this is to establish some form of ‘environmental scanning’ or ‘horizon scanning’ processes within your design team. Avoid the danger of fixating on a competitor’s advantage, or a particular client’s requirements, by maintaining as broad a view as possible.
Here are four categories you may want to start with. Review sources in each category with the same question; “What does this source tell me about the evolving needs of effective learning design in my discipline?”
Academic Literature
Academic Journals in your discipline
Academic Books and Book Chapters in your discipline
Academic publications in related fields that impact directly, or indirectly on your discipline.
Conference Proceedings
Conference proceedings are very often very much current or future implementations of scholarship. A great place to get a handle on what is happening ‘now’ and in the near future.
Grey Literature
The blogosphere is a great place to source original and innovative approaches. Once you have validated the sources (so that you know the writer has credibility) you may want to track their train of thought over time.
White Papers from software producers (most disciplines make some use of technology!) and publishers are also counted as ‘Grey Literature’. Some software companies have in-house R&D divisions that foreshadow major trends in your discipline.
Contacts
Personal or Team contacts also provide invaluable accounts of practice that inform the design process. You may find out the difficulties, or advantages, of running virtual scenarios for example and correct your design accordingly.
Evaluating your Contextual Judgements
It is important to return to these questions as you go through the future stages of the 8-SLDF. You will want to revisit these questions each time you have a course team meeting:
Has my institutional strategy or alignment changed in any way?
Have any quality assurance regulations, guidelines or benchmarks changed in any way?
Do I still have all of the external reference points (my horizon-scanning) established to be able to define Programme Outcomes?
What contextual circumstances might suggest that I should do something different from the norm and what external support is needed? And if I’m not doing anything innovative, why not?!
What issues has my horizon scanning produced that others in the School or wide University need to be aware of?
References
Atkinson, S. P. (2015). Graduate Competencies, Employability and Educational Taxonomies: Critique of Intended Learning Outcomes. Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 10(2), 154–177.
Susskind, R., & Susskind, D. (2017). The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts. OUP Oxford.
Colleague interested in designing modules and programmes that enable a full range of skills development across domains (cognitive, affective, psychomotor, interpersonal and metacognitive) will hopefully find this short video resource useful. Feel free to share with colleagues on PGCerts. It is designed to support a reflective question which is, “what are the tools that your graduates might be expected to master on day one in their first graduate job role?” and secondly, “how would you design intended learning outcomes to progressively enable your students to acquire such skills and to demonstrate them?” (to be assessed)
This ten-minute video (10’30”) outlines the advantages of using a psychomotor domain taxonomy in designing learning outcomes for both vocational programmes and all tertiary disciplines. Simon Atkinson advocates the design of ‘manual’ skills in terms of computer software and tools used by graduates. He outlines two taxonomies from the 1960s and 70s, those by Simpson and Harrow (full references are on the main psychomotor domain page), but both of these are described as being more psychological definitional taxonomies, whereas Ravindra H. Dave’s 1967/70 taxonomy lends itself perfectly to the articulation of progressive skills development in tertiary contexts. Simon also illustrates the scope of ‘manual’ skills applied to all disciplines regardless of whether arts, humanities, social or physical sciences.
While such taxonomies are clearly of interest to those designing vocational and adult learning programmes, it is arguably as important that university students also experience the progressive nature of intended learning outcomes. Writing, and assessing, such outcomes will support graduates’ development of tangible ‘physical skills’, notably in the use of discipline-specific digital applications. Course designers should not abdicate the responsibility of such skills development to an extra-curricular programme of ‘digital literacy, but incorporate their skills development in their mainstream courses.
I persist in being a fervent advocate for the use of a broader range of domains of learning, other than the cognitive domain (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001; Bloom, 1956), in course design.
Higher education must surely be more than just about acquiring content and intellectual skills. A broader student experience should be embedded into each course, module and programme design, beyond that of acquiring purely intellectual skills.
The ‘graduate skills’ so demanded by employers are rarely without reference to so-called ‘soft skills’ (S. P. Atkinson, 2015). These are interpersonal domain skills, conflict resolution, cross-cultural awareness, collaboration and communications are what most graduates need most (J. C. Atkinson, 2014; Bennett, 1986). Alongside these the skills, often assumed by employers, to make effective use of software pertinent to that profession are rarely taught and assessed despite being critical to be effective on the day one. These skills can be set out and assessed using psychomotor domain outcomes (Dave, 1967). Such non-intellectual attributes are often seen by faculty as beyond their remit, as are also those values, the affective domain (Krathwohl, Bloom, & Masia, 1956) and the development of personal epistemologies using a metacognitive domain (S. P. Atkinson, 2014) which form part of the maturation process within students themselves. These cannot be ‘taught’ in the strict sense, but their facilitation is entirely within the capabilities of able faculty.
Given that we know students are more likely to take anything assessed seriously, it is essential to write assessable outcomes across a range of skills. So, it is beholden on course designers to include the interpersonal domain (communications, cross-cultural awareness, conflict resolution), affective domain (values), metacognitive domain (personal epistemologies) and the psychomotor domain (manual and dexterity skills). Each has its place in all disciplines. There is clearly a craft in designing ILOs that motivate and steer learning but which are transparent and assessable. There is guidance on how to do that under the 8 Stage Learning Design Framework 8-SLDF and I am always willing to share practice with colleagues in workshops when requested.
Bibliography
Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing : a revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman.
Atkinson, J. C. (2014). Education, Values and Ethics in International Heritage: Learning to Respect. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Group.
Atkinson, S. P. (2014). Rethinking personal tutoring systems: the need to build on a foundation of epistemological beliefs. London: BPP University College.
Atkinson, S. P. (2015). Graduate Competencies, Employability and Educational Taxonomies: Critique of Intended Learning Outcomes. Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 10(2), 154–177.
Bennett, M. J. (1986). A developmental approach to training for intercultural sensitivity. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10(2), 179–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/0147-1767(86)90005-2
Bloom, B. S. (Ed.). (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain (2nd edition). New York: Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd.
Dave, R. H. (1967). Psychomotor domain. Presented at the International Conference of Educational Testing, Berlin.
Krathwohl, D. R., Bloom, B. S., & Masia, B. B. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook II: Affective Domain. New York: David McKay Company, Inc.
It may seem strange to design our evaluation structures before we have even recruited students onto our programmes. We need first to understand the distinction between assessment, feedback and evaluation. It is then important to explore both the evaluation of learning experiences and evaluation for-learning, which I will refer to as in-class evaluation for the sake of consistency.
The pages associated with this blog, stage 8 of the 8-SLDF, explores 5 basic concepts that underpin the evaluation of learning.
Distinguishing between Evaluation, Feedback and Assessment
Measuring Student Performance versus Teacher Performance
In-class evaluation versus Post-Completion evaluation
Learning Gain
Progression: Access, Retention, Pass Rates, Grades, Completion and Destination
This post is a summary of the page for Stage 7 of the 8-SLDF, and the fourth element in a constructively aligned course design approach, which is feedback throughout. Closely reflective of both our assessment practice and our learning activities, feedback is best fully integrated into the learning rather than seen as a separate administrative response to submitted work. Designing feedback throughout opportunities in our courses will lead us to adopt variations in our learning activities and potentially to modify our assessment strategies too. Reviewing our strategies for feedback at this stage in the design process allows us to ensure that we can adjust our ILOs, assessment and activities if necessary to accommodate meaningful feedback throughout.
There are four concepts which we need to clarify or define, for this stage of the 8-SLDF. These are:
Formative Feedback
Feedback for learning
Feedforward
Feedback throughout.
They all feature in a well-structured feedback approach to any module or programme in higher education, regardless of whether it is a classroom/seminar based module, online or blended course. They are explored fully on the Feedback pages.
“Why do I need to worry about manual skills? I teach history/French/maths…”. My answer is simple. What tools are used in the pursuit of your discipline? Is there not a degree of increasing proficiency in the deployment of these tools expected of students they progress through their studies?
Psychomotor skills can be defined as those skills and abilities that require a physical component. Rather than using the mind to think (cognitive) or reflect (metacognitive), or our ability to speak and observe to develop social skills (affective, interpersonal), these are things we do physically. These skills require a degree of dexterity, suppleness, or strength. They require motor control.
Such skills have been in development since parents taught their children to hunt, to sew skins together and make fire. There is a rich history in vocational education towards acknowledging progressive skills development, from apprentice to journeyman and to master (Perrin, 2017), dating back before the establishment of craft guilds in the European High Middle Ages (Richardson, 2005). As the craft guilds loosened their grip, as industrialisation centralised the production of goods and ultimately services, some skills have been lost, others divided, segmented, into a series of tasks. Formal education has routinely separated cognitive and manual skills, giving primacy to intellectual skills above all others (Gardner, 2011).
With the growth of formalised vocational education, noticeably in the OECD developed economies in the 1950s to the 1970s, attention turned amongst policymakers as to how to codify and measure progressive skills development. These resulted in the development of a number of educational taxonomies for objectives (or outcomes in later language) notably those of Simpson (1972), Harrow (1972) and Dave (1969). It is understood that Ravindra Dave was party to Bloom’s project team’s original 1950s work on the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains although all three significant contributions have to some extent referenced Bloom’s work.
Simpson (1972) established a progressive taxonomy with 7 stages.
Stage
Descriptor
Perception*
Sensory cues guide motor activity.
Set*
Mental, physical, and emotional dispositions that make one respond in a certain way to a situation.
Guided Response
First attempts at a physical skill. Trial and error coupled with practice lead to better performance.
Mechanism
The intermediate stage in learning a physical skill. Responses are habitual with a medium level of assurance and proficiency.
Complex Overt Response
Complex movements are possible with a minimum of wasted effort and a high level of assurance they will be successful.
Adaptation
Movements can be modified for special situations.
Origination
New movements can be created for special situations.
Arguably Simpson’s first two stages are dispositional and can be separated from the remaining 5 stages. Likewise, Harrow’s (1972) 6 stage taxonomy organized around the notion of coordination is less of a progressive educational taxonomy given that it combines involuntary responses*, arguably interpersonal skills** and learned capabilities:
Stage
Descriptor
Reflex movements*
Automatic reactions.
Basic fundamental movement
Simple movements that can build more complex sets of movements.
Perceptual
Environmental cues that allow one to adjust movements.
Physical activities
Things requiring endurance, strength, vigour, and agility.
Skilled movements
Activities where a level of efficiency is achieved.
Non-discursive communication **
Body language.
My personal belief is that less is more in the context of psychomotor taxonomies and favour the following 5 stage version developed by Ravindra H. Dave (1970) in the context of vocational education.
Stage
Descriptor
Imitation
Observing and copying someone else.
Manipulation
Guided via instruction to perform a skill.
Precision
Accuracy, proportion and exactness exist in the skill performance without the presence of the original source.
Articulation
Two or more skills combined, sequenced, and performed consistently.
Naturalization
Two or more skills combined, sequenced, and performed consistently and with ease. The performance is automatic with little physical or mental exertion.
I have adapted Dave’s psychomotor taxonomy in order to make it suitable for the articulation of intended learning outcomes for higher education programmes, regardless of disciplines.
Dave Stage
Atkinson’s Stage
Revised Descriptor
Imitation
(to) Imitate
ability to copy, replicate the actions of others following observations.
Manipulation
(to) Manipulate
ability to repeat or reproduce actions to prescribed standard from memory or instructions.
Precision
(to) Perfect
ability to perform actions with expertise and without interventions and the ability to demonstrate and explain actions to others.
Articulation
(to) Articulate
ability to adapt existing psychomotor skills in a non-standard way, in different contexts, using alternative tools and instruments to satisfy a need.
Naturalization
(to) Embody
ability to perform actions in an automatic, intuitive or unconscious way appropriate to the context.
I have then chosen to represent this revised version of the psychomotor domain as a circular form (as I have done with other domains). This develops the active verbs appropriate to each proto-verb for each stage which can be used to design course designers in authoring intended learning outcomes and learning activities and their objectives. The outer circle also suggest possible, but not exclusive approaches to allowing students to demonstrate such skills development in the context of higher education.
But what again of the academic who says, “I teach history (or maths, or French, or nearly any higher education discipline), what do these skills have to do with me and my students?”
My answer is simple. What tools are used in the pursuit of your discipline? Is there not a degree of increasing proficiency in the deployment of these tools expected of students they progress through their studies?
Examples of tools used in higher education across a range of disciplines are not hard to come up with. Once you start thinking about it I am sure you can add many more:
Discipline
Tools (physical, paper-based or online)
Languages
Dictionaries, Thesaurus, Lexicons
Maths
Calculator, MathML, Geometry software
History & Philosophy
Mapping software, archival retrieval, databases
Geography
GIS (Geographic Information Systems), Mapping software, Spatial databases
Psychology and biology
Response systems, lab equipment
Physics and Chemistry
Modelling and visualisation software, lab equipment
Accounting and Business
SPSS, Accounting software, Spreadsheets
Music
Instruments, recording equipment
Dance & Performance
Lighting rigs, sound equipment
More advanced students expected to record and analyse quantitative or qualitative data are likely to also be faced with using SPSS or its equivalent of NVivo or its competitors. And of course, all students should be expected to make use of the library search engines and associated bibliographic software. Most will also use word processing software (Word) and presentational software (PowerPoint).
Do we assume that the skills to use these skills are simply absorbed through some form of osmosis, through casual exposure? Can we realistically expect undergraduates to have ‘done this at school’ or for postgraduates to ‘come already equipped from their undergraduate degree’?
Obviously not. So what do we do about it as course designers and teaching faculty? Firstly we need to design our courses through a systemic approach. But we can also make use of the psychomotor taxonomies above to structure assessable intended learning outcomes. We know that students are focussed on where the assessment points to. They engage in anything that is directly assessed and ignore anything that appears peripheral. So by designing into a module’s ILOs the psychomotor skills associated with the tools of the discipline we are able to:
motivate students
encourage their real-world assessment skills
deliver employment skills
Unless there is an absolute, universally agreed, brand name associated with a tool it is always best to refer to it more generically. For example, it is better to refer to ‘GIS systems’ rather ‘ArcGIS’, or ‘professional audio mixing equipment’ rather than ‘Studiomaster ClubXS’.
Thesame guidelines on creating well-structured progressive ILOs for intellectual skills (cognitive domain) still apply.As with allILOit is important to be a precise and concise as possible while all the while trying to preserve a degree of flexibility.
Structure of all ILOs follows the same pattern: Active Verb -> Subject -> Context.
Below are some examples. Each one makes use of my taxonomy circle above demonstrating a progression in complexity should a student be required to develop increased proficiency towards mastery through an undergraduate or postgraduate degree.
This first example is from a humanities discipline in which archival databases and library-based sources more often than not require some manipulation. Consider the difference between what is being asked of a first-year undergraduate and that of a postgraduate masters student. Remember this is just one of a number of ILOs for this particular module.
Discipline: History
On successful completion of this module you will be able to:
Level 4: First Year UG
replicatesearches of valuable sources of historical research datafor the purpose of verification
Level 5: Second Year UG
employa range of different search engines and archival systemsto produce a meaningful dataset
Level 6: Third Year UG
organisea systematic search of historical recordsin order to answer a pre-determined research question
Level 7: Masters
managesearches across a range of remote web-based servicesto provide a robust dataset
You will also notice that I have not made the mistake of identifying a specific archive or database. So your resources can change without you having to rewrite your ILOs.
In this next example, from a physical science discipline, instruments are named but only using their generic name rather than a specific model or brand for the same reason. The progressive theme here is measurement.
Discipline: Physics
On successful completion of this module you will be able to:
Level 4: First Year UG
adhereto prescribed methods for using Vernier callipersto make accurate measurements
Level 5: Second Year UG
manipulatea range of micrometresto perform precise measurements
Level 6: Third Year UG
calibratean oscilloscopeto accurately measure time-variance in voltages
Level 7: Masters
integratea range of different lab equipmentin order to support the accurate recording of experimental data
Finally, here is an example from languages. I remember at one institution a student complained that they did not know how to add accents and macrons to their typed script. They were resorting to printing out a text and then providing the finishing touches with a pen! Surely we should support students to develop skills in something as superficially basic as word-processing too.
Discipline: French
On successful completion of this module you will be able to:
Level 4: First Year UG
replicate simple tasks to make use of an AZERTY keyboardto produce French language texts
Level 5: Second Year UG
employthe customisation features within your word processing softwareto facilitate authoring in French
Level 6: Third Year UG
organiseyour information technology environmentto optimise the production of edited texts in French
Level 7: Masters
integratemultilingual referenced sources in your bibliographic software and cite them appropriatelythrough a variety of publishing platforms
Hopefully, these illustrations will provide you with some insights into how you might progressively support students in their ‘tool’ use.
For most university programmes, with the exception of arts and performance related subjects, psychomotor domain skills are likely to be seen as less significant than the cognitive (intellectual skills), affective (values), metacognitive (epistemological development) and interpersonal (communication) domain skills. But I would argue there is not a single programme, if not every single module, warrants the inclusion of a psychomotor outcomes students needs to have assessed to invest value in its acquisition.
References
Dave, R. H. (1967). Psychomotor domain. Presented at the International Conference of Educational Testing, Berlin.
Gardner, H. (2011). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
Richardson, G. (2005). Craft Guilds and Christianity in Late-Medieval England: A Rational-Choice Analysis. Rationality and Society, 17(2), 139–189. https://doi.org/10.1177/1043463105051631
The third element in a constructively aligned course design and stage six of the 8-SLDF is the learning activities that allow students to prepare for the assessment of their learning outcomes. This is not about the content that we share with our students; it is about how we develop an appropriate strategy to do that. Some modules will require a good deal of knowledge to be acquired by novice learners and a set-text and discursive seminars may be the appropriate strategy. Could we use one-minute papers, ‘Pecha Kucha’, lightning talks, and other techniques to secure student engagement? Alternatively, we might be designing a more advanced module in which a discovery learning approach is more appropriate. Could we use enquiry based learning models here instead, asking our students to prepare to take a debate position, run a Moot or team-based discussion? The important thing is that we are developing a strategy and practical approaches that build on our design, not seeking innovation for innovation’s sake. The pages for this stage of the 8 Stage Learning Design Framework are summarised as:
The content to be taught should serve the students ability to evidence the ILO
The skills and attributes that are taught at a topic, week or session level should be designed to rehearse elements of the assessment
Not everything that engages students is directly assessed but everything they are asked to do should be justifiable as informing the assessment and ILOs.
You might want to ask yourself as a course design team
How closely mapped are the ILOsto each topic, week or session outline?
How confident are you that you cover the ILOs appropriately in terms of weighting and importance?
How much variation is there in the learning approaches taken throughout your module?
How are you enabling students to develop skills beyond knowledge acquisition?
This post is a shortened version of a new resource posted about designing effective ILOs available here.
ILOs are the detailed explanations, written in language the students will understand before beginning the module or programme, as to what they will be able to DO when they have successfully completed the learning.
Many quality assurance structures, institutional or external, require Programme and Module Specifications contain details of the ‘intended learning outcomes’ (ILOs) of the programme of study. ILOs serve to provide students with a ‘checklist’ of the types of skills, attributes, abilities or competencies they should be able to evidence through successfully completing the module or programme.
Intended Learning Outcomes should not be seen as a straight-jacket for faculty. Rather, if they are well written, they should provide scaffolding for creativity in teaching and assessment.
Most teachers can identify any number of unintended learning outcomes, depending on the character of the cohort, the changing context in which learning takes place or the emergent nature of the discipline. However, the ILOs are the facets of learning that will be assessed. They should be written knowing that these are the capabilities that will be assessed, not the content knowledge.
Read more for guidance on how to structure effective ILOs that cover all dimensions of learning.
