Use Our Super Secret Formula to Measure 📐 Your Course Better

Effective teaching relies on well-written learning outcomes. Learning outcomes help you measure the effectiveness of any kind of learning experience you design — in the classroom or out.

Here’s the thing though: Writing learning outcomes is really hard. Recently, we developed a little formula to help anyone (new teachers, pro-teachers, people who don’t see themselves as teachers at all!) write useful learning outcomes. We don’t want to keep it to ourselves, so here it is!

Identify learning gaps

We’ll get to examples of learning outcomes in a moment. But first let’s identify “learning gaps.”

Learning gaps are like missing planks on a bridge. They keep your learners from reaching the other side of the river (i.e. a new level of skill) safely. Identifying these will give us the material we need to write outcomes.

For this exercise, simply write everything your learner will need to know, know how to do, or should want to do. We call these knowledge, skill, and motivation gaps respectively.

Here’s that again with a few examples for a course called “Reading 101”:

• Knowledge gaps (know): My learners need to know the alphabet
• Skill gaps (know how to do): My learners need to know how to sound out words
• Motivation gaps (should want to do): My learners should want to read more books

Be sure to focus on gaps that keep learners from their next level of skill. For instance, if you’re teaching Accounting 101, don’t include learning gaps for Accounting 500.

Translate gaps into outcomes

Once you’ve listed the essential learning gaps, you can translate these into learning outcomes. This translation will produce more useful statements. With these, you’ll be able to measure how well your course does.

To write effective learning outcomes, you’ll need to identify the action your learners should take, the situation in which they’ll take it, and how you’ll measure their level of success. Here’s the simple formula for that:

Action + Situation + (Measurability) = Learning Outcome

Pretty simple formula, right? Let’s practice using it.

Practice time!

Let’s go back to my course, Reading 101. (Remember, you can use this idea for non-school related learning experiences. This just happens to be an easy example.)

Check out these learning gaps I’ve identified for my course:

• Knowledge: My learners need to know the alphabet
• Knowledge: My learners need to know to read from left to right (in the book and on the page)
• Knowledge: My learners need to know the definitions of some basic, entry level words
• Skill: My learners need to know how to sound out words
• Motivation: My learners should want to read more books

These are exactly the gaps that stand between new readers and a good book. But they aren’t quite specific enough to help me measure how well I’ve taught my learners at the end of my course.

Below, I’ve translated each gap into an outcome. In bold, I’ve written the action and in italics I’ve written the situation.

By the end of my course my learners will be able to . . .

• Say the alphabet from start to finish with no help
• Open and move through a book in the proper way in order to read it
• Define basic words they’ll need to know in order to read books written for 5 to 7 year olds
• Pronounce words using context clues, phonics, or memory
• Choose three books that they’d like to read at home to their parents

What about measurability?

You might notice I’ve left out measurability. Measurability often doesn’t end up in the outcome itself. When I check for measurability I want to know that the outcome can be measured. How I measure it depends on my teaching situation.

For instance, if I’m teaching in person, I can have my learners come to my desk to say the alphabet. If I’m teaching at a distance, I’ll need to have them video themselves completing the assignment or have a parent sign off on the skill.

At the measurability check, I’m simply asking, “What real-life evidence tells me my learners have accomplished this outcome?” If I can think of a few ways, that means my outcome passes the final test. When I start designing my course, I can decide the best way to collect that evidence.

Applying the formula

It’s very likely that you, like me, will never teach Reading 101. But you might be giving a talk to new employees on how to use the equipment in your office. Or you could be teaching the basics of glassblowing to people around the world. Or you might be teaching remedial physics — for the first time ever! — to incoming freshmen. These situations require learning outcomes to plan a great learning experience too.

When we write outcomes, we help ourselves and our learners. Using outcomes, we know that we’ve helped our learners with precisely the knowledge, skill, and motivation they need. But we also give ourselves the chance to make our lessons and courses better for future learners if we happen to miss the mark.

Give it a try. Let me know what you think.

And if you’d like, we have a more detailed explanation of this process (including videos and more examples) in this course. (You can use the code “empathy” to get 50% off.)

Thousands of teachers use Pathwright every day to design and teach courses to their team, class, or anyone in the world. If you’d like to design a course, we invite you to try out Pathwright for free. You’ve got nothing to lose!