The CIDI monthly newsletter to USU instructors shares the latest news, teaching tips, and technology updates to help you succeed as a teacher.

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Outcome-Driven Instruction

If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know you’ve arrived?

Outcomes are like trail markers: they let students know where they are heading and they help us as educators decide if the students have made it to the intended destination. When we provide clear learning outcomes, there shouldn’t be any confusion on the part of the student or the teacher in knowing whether a student has reached the destination or not. In response to an increased interest in measuring student outcome performance, today we’ll look at some concepts and practices related to using outcomes and measuring their achievement.

In a broad sense, we commonly use the term outcomes in higher education to refer to the desired results of instruction. We also talk about outcomes when referring to established standards used for accreditation and program evaluation. Wiggins and McTighe (2005) popularized the term “backward design” to describe a simple outcomes-driven approach to instructional planning. In backward design, an instructor identifies specific desired results (outcomes), figures out how to measure them, and then focuses on helping students achieve those outcomes through practical means. This approach is a great way to help students have a successful learning experience. It is also a great way to demonstrate effectiveness as an instructor and the efficacy of a course or program.

Simple Outcome-Based Instructional Planning

An outcome-driven approach can be simple to plan. For a pre-built planning worksheet, see CIDI's course mapping document. It follows these basic steps:

1. Articulate major course outcomes.
2. List the assignments you will use to measure whether students meet your outcomes.
3. Identify activities that will give your students practice and feedback toward your outcomes.
4. Finally, create a table. For each unit of instruction (usually a class period or week), organize your outcomes, activities, and content.

With your plan in place, you can get to work pulling together your content, assignments, and assessments!

Good Outcomes

Outcome-driven instruction is only as good as the outcomes it targets. Good outcomes generally:

• Include the important knowledge, skills, attitudes, theory, and behaviors for the topic of study.
• Are measurable.
• Fit neatly into students' overall progress as individuals, students, professionals, and citizens.

For help with writing good outcomes, you can use our worksheet to walk you through the process.

Keeping Track of Outcome Progress in Canvas

If desired, you can use Canvas to track student performance on outcomes. Here are the basic steps, with linked tutorials:

1. Go to the Outcomes section of your Canvas course. Add your outcomes and scoring criteria.
2. Add rubrics to your Canvas assignments. Add your outcomes as rows on your rubric. It's up to you whether to make them count toward the assignment score.
3. For quizzes, organize questions pertaining to a particular outcome into a question bank, then associate the outcome with the bank.
4. Enable the Mastery Gradebook features so that you and your students can view outcome performance in addition to standard grades.
5. Outcomes management is also possible in Canvas New Quizzes and Atomic Assessments, although they won't update the Learning Mastery Gradebook.

Departments can also add and track outcomes at the department level in Canvas. Contact CIDI for more details.

As always, CIDI is available to help instructors and departments implement these techniques and more.