INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES



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Use the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy verbs to help develop Intended Learning Outcomes.


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What are Intended Learning Outcomes?

  • to introduce to students what they will learn
  • to explain to students how they will learn
  • to enable students to learn

core definition

A learning outcome is the specification of what a student should learn as the result of a period of specified and supported study.


explanatory context

Learning outcomes are concerned with the achievements of the learner rather than the intentions of the teacher (expressed in the aims of a module or course). They can take many forms and can be broad or narrow in nature (Adam, 2004).

Learning outcomes and ‘aims and objectives’ are often used synonymously, although they are not the same. Adam (2004) notes that ‘Aims are concerned with teaching and the teacher’s intentions whilst learning outcomes are concerned with learning’ and Moon (2002) suggests that one way to distinguish aims from learning outcomes is that aims indicate the general content, direction and intentions behind the module from the designer/teacher viewpoint.
However, learning outcomes and objectives are more difficult to distinguish as objectives can be written in terms that are very similar to that used in learning outcomes. Indeed, in the UK polytechnic sector in the 1970s, objectives were written that identified what students should be able to do; this was well before they were known as learning outcomes.

Citation reference: Harvey, L., 2004, Analytic Quality Glossary,
Quality Research International, http://www.qualityresearchinternational.com/glossary/



What is Bloom's Taxonomy?

Understanding that "taxonomy" and "classification" are synonymous helps dispel uneasiness with the term. Bloom's Taxonomy is a multi-tiered model of classifying thinking according to six cognitive levels of complexity.

http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Bloom%27s_Taxonomy



Revised Bloom's Taxonomy (RBT)

During the 1990's, a former student of Bloom's, Lorin Anderson, led a new assembly which met for the purpose of updating the taxonomy, hoping to add relevance for 21st century students and teachers. This time "representatives of three groups [were present]: cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists" (Anderson, & Krathwohl, 2001, p. xxviii). Like the original group, they were also arduous and diligent in their pursuit of learning, spending six years to finalize their work. Published in 2001, the revision includes several seemingly minor yet actually quite significant changes.


Caption: Terminology changes "The graphic is a representation of the NEW verbage associated with the long familiar Bloom's Taxonomy. Note the change from Nouns to Verbs [e.g., Application to Applying] to describe the different levels of the taxonomy. Note that the top two levels are essentially exchanged from the Old to the New version." (Schultz, 2005) (Evaluation moved from the top to Evaluating in the second from the top, Synthesis moved from second on top to the top as Creating.) Source: http://www.odu.edu/educ/llschult/blooms_taxonomy.htm


Caption: Terminology changes "The graphic is a representation of the NEW verbage associated with the long familiar Bloom's Taxonomy. Note the change from Nouns to Verbs [e.g., Application to Applying] to describe the different levels of the taxonomy. Note that the top two levels are essentially exchanged from the Old to the New version." (Schultz, 2005) (Evaluation moved from the top to Evaluating in the second from the top, Synthesis moved from second on top to the top as Creating.) Source: http://www.odu.edu/educ/llschult/blooms_taxonomy.htm


The new terms are defined as:

* Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long-term memory.
* Understanding: Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining.
* Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure through executing, or implementing.
* Analyzing: Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and attributing.
* Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing.
* Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing.

(Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001, pp. 67-68)


RBT - Two Dimensional Table


Table1. Bloom's Taxonomy