Developing Effective Learning Outcomes for Student Success

Originally published August 15, 2025

Did you know that learning outcomes are different from your course objectives? 

While course objectives outline core content, concepts, or theories that you will teach in your class, Learning Outcomes are statements of specific knowledge, areas of professional development, attitudes, practical, or higher-order thinking skills that students are expected to learn, develop, or master by the end of a course (Suskie, 2009). Explore more about learning outcomes in this Guide.

• When intentionally aligned with your assessments and learning activities, learning outcomes provide the roadmap to students that clarifies academic success in your course and how you will measure their achievement. 

• Being able to communicate the compass of your course using learning outcomes as the guide provides both transparency and purpose to students, overall enhancing ownership and inclusion in the learning process, as well as your teaching effectiveness.  

• Additionally, demonstrating well-crafted, aligned and measurable learning outcomes is an evidence-based way that you can highlight your teaching effectiveness in your dossier, for tenure, annual reports, and for teaching awards.

Attributes of strong learning outcomes

• Student Centred: Learning outcomes focus on the change in the students because of the learning experience in your class. You can simply begin writing LOs by completing this sentence: “By the end of this course, students will be able to ….”

• Actionable: Next, select an action verb to clearly indicate to students what they should be able to know, value or do with the content you teach them.

  • Bloom’s Taxonomy is the most widely used classification system for developing learning outcomes in Canadian universities (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001). However, other frameworks may be better suited to your course and learning level, such as Fink’s (2012) Taxonomy of Significant (Integrated) Learning or LaFever’s (2013) Switching from Bloom to the Medicine Wheel.

• Measurable: Learning outcomes focus on specific knowledge, values or actions that are assessable by the instructor so that the extent of the achievement can be accurately evaluated. Avoid verbs that are ambiguous in their meaning, such as “be aware of”, “understand”, and “appreciate”, as these verbs are not measurable and are more conceptual in nature. Choose instead verbs like “Identify”, “Analyze”, “Apply”.

• Aligned: Constructive Alignment should inform the link between your learning outcomes, assessments and classroom activities.

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