Information Technology Systems & Services
Instructional Outcomes
Instructional outcomes define the desired results of the instruction. They specify what the teacher wants the students to learn. What will the student come away from your workshop with?...An ability?...An awareness?...An understanding?
- For our hands-on workshop offerings we basically specify performance.For
instance most of our workshops list outcomes beginning with:
- Ability to...
- But since most of our short technology presentation sessions
(like Brown Bag, Technology at Two, etc.) are overviews they
list outcomes beginning with words like:
- Awareness of...
- Understanding of...
Often compared to instructional, performance, or behavioral "objectives", the term "outcomes" is used here to allow more flexibility in indicating not only what the students should be able to do following instruction, but also what can be inferred about students' learning when the learning is of a more cognitive, less observable, nature. (concepts and such) Various methods for detailing outcomes have been described (Jacobson, Eggen, & Kauck, 1993). A good method is described by R.F. Mager (1984), in which outcomes include three components:
- Performance: what the students will do to indicate what they have learned
- Conditions: the circumstances under which the students are expected to perform (setting, people, equipment, information)
- Criteria: the standard that defines acceptable output (defines what is important in the performance ie. Time, Accuracy, Quality)
On the training site we are basically specifying only performance (not the other two parts---"conditions" and "criteria"---of a well written instructional outcome).