Learning Outcomes:

Assumptions and Data Collection 

You may ask yourself, "How does the Learning Outcomes project affect what I do in my classroom? I teach this already and I assess my students on the content of my courses. What else is there?"

In the meantime, you teach. You do what you've always done: Find ways to engage your students with your course content, the ideas, lessons, concepts you're passionate about. You add the learning outcomes to your syllabus. But your questions may remain. 

In the spirit of addressing some of those questions, the Learning Outcomes Coordinating Council (LOCC) inaugurates this Update to be published once per major term. The goal is to provide answers to your questions and to showcase the talents and ideas of our colleagues.  

This article discusses the aims of the project by describing the assumptions upon which it is grounded and the data which inform the College's understading of student learning. 

The Learning Outcomes Project is grounded on the following assumptions:

1) Our agreement that there are certain skills, knowledge, and behavior that our students should possess upon graduation from our institution (our working definition of the Ten Learning Outcomes);

2) The long-standing reality that, as teaching professionals, we are interested in how and what our students learn and that, to that end, curriculum review (at the classroom and institutional level) occur on an ongoing basis;

3) The findings of educational research and the soundness of the Learning College paradigm for our institution;

4) SACS accreditation and accountability.

This project aims to describe for us, at the institutional level, what it is that we ALREADY do that works and to create a cohesive narrative of what the institution strives for, a discovery of the places where our curricular goals converge and diverge and how these realities bring about the overall success of our students.

The LO project describes that narrative of what we already do in several ways:

1) Curriculum Mapping which offers a snapshot of a students’ complete MDC program experience in relation to the Ten Learning Outcomes (the skills, knowledge, and behavior we have agreed we value as an institution);

2) Current student and alumni surveys which provide data on how students are acquiring and have acquired our Ten Learning Outcomes;

3) Learning Outcomes Assessment which collects aggregate data on student attainment of the Outcomes (the assessment does not affect students' graduation and it does not reflect the performance of any one class, instructor, or program);

4) Co-Curricular activities, which are now described in terms of the ways in which they support students’ acquisition of the Ten Learning Outcomes;  

5) Other measures, including course success rates, retention studies, and student engagement studies, which inform the College's understanding of student learning.