Roosevelt University - Developing Course Goals

Developing Course Goals
Ideas for Effective College Teaching | Faculty and Staff

"It is a lot easier to get to where you want to go when you know where you want to go."

Many college faculty members can easily state what they want their students to learn. For instance, professors who teach introductory psychology may want students to learn about the primary theories in the field, the scientific method, or well-established research findings. However, it is more difficult to describe what students should be able to do at the end of a course. There is a large difference between "knowing something" and the ability to use knowledge.

Many college faculty members report that reflecting on their teaching goals for a particular course is a productive experience that can organize their entire class. More specifically, teaching goals clearly articulate what you want your students to be able to do after completing your course. Good teaching goals describe student performance rather than course topics or instruction techniques. They are also specific, concrete, and measurable.

Here's some help in establishing goals for your classes:

Step 1: Complete the Teaching Goals Inventory on-line at: http://www.uiowa.edu/~centeach/tgi/

This questionnaire assesses the extent to which you value the development of students' higher order thinking skills, basic academic success skills, discipline-specific knowledge, liberal arts and academic values, work and career preparation, and personal development.

Understanding the extent to which you prioritize each of these areas in your own teaching allows you to select consistent instructional methods.

Step 2: Refine your teaching goals by considering the level of undertanding that you value the most for the particular course.

The chart below, adapted from Linda Nilson's text Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors (Bolton, MA: Anker), highlights the different levels within Bloom's taxonomy of knowledge.

Which sorts of understanding do you want to inspire? Are your teaching methods consistent with this form of learning? Are the methods that you use to evaluate student performance assessing these levels of knowledge?

Cognitive Process	Student Performance Verbs	Models of Specific Objectives
Knowledge The ability to state, recall, or recognize previously learned material.	Arrange Define Label List Name Recall	State Newton's Laws of Motion Identify the major impressionist painters
Comprehension The ability to grasp the meaning of material and restate it in one's own words.	Classify Describe Translate Explain Indicate	Describe the data indicated by the graph Summarize the passage from Huckleberry Finn
Application The ability to use learned material in new and concrete situations.	Apply Demonstrate Illustrate Use Interpret	Develop an experiment to test the influence of light quality on the Hill reaction of photosynthesis Scan the poem for metric foot and rhyme scheme
Analysis The ability to break down material into its component parts so as to understand its organizational structure	Analyze Compare Contrast Distinguish Examine Differentiate Calculate	Determine the necessary controls for a study examining the relationship between racial background and intelligence Discuss the efficacy of isolationism in the global economy
Synthesis The ability to put parts together to form a new whole	Arrange Assemble Construct Formulate Integrate Predict	Compose a logical argument on assisted suicide in opposition to your personal opinion Write a short story in Hemingway's style
Evaluation The ability to judge the value of material for a given purpose	Argue Assess Appraise Defend Dispute Evaluate Support	Assess the validity of the conclusions based on the data and statistical analyses Suggest stock market investments based on company performance and projected value

Would you like to learn more about teaching goals? In addition to Linda Nilson's book listed above, a great resource is: Mager, R. F. (1997). Preparing instructional objectives (3rd ed.). Atlanta, GA: Center for Effective Performance.