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The first stage of planning a course or a lesson is deciding on learning outcomes.
Learning outcomes are statements about what students will learn.
For a whole course, they answer the question ‘What will my learners be able to understand/do by the end of the course?’ (not ‘What will I have taught them?)
For one session/class, they answer the question 'What will my students learn today?' (rather than 'What will I teach them?')
Once you have arrived at the learning outcomes, planning a course and each individual session becomes much more straightforward. You can see what to include and what to leave out. They focus you on what learners will learn, not what you will tell them!
Are you familiar with the learning outcomes for your course?
If not, you will find them on your course outline on www.citylit.ac.uk. You should study these first. Then look at the example below explaining how to use the course outcomes in deciding on outcomes for an individual session/class.
Learning outcomes for one session/class
On the City Lit website, an (imaginary) Stand up Comedy course gives one course learning outcome as 'to be able to write and tell a joke'.
The tutor starts to cover this outcome on session 3 of the 10 week course.
What does she want learners to achieve by the end of the session? She writes the following mini learning outcomes:
By the end of the session you will be able to:
analyse a joke and explain how it works
write your own joke using the pattern you have discovered
evaluate your joke by telling it to your peers
Now the content of the session falls into place. The teacher knows she needs to
explain how jokes work,
ask learners to analyse some jokes to see the pattern
invite learners to try writing a joke themselves
ask learners to try out their jokes on each other and get feedback
Learners will go on practising writing jokes throughout the course.
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