Course Learning Outcomes are reviewed as part of the curriculum process for all New Course, Course Change and Course Review proposals, whether or not they have been changed since the last proposal was approved.  Program learning outcomes are reviewed as part of the curriculum process for all New Program and Program Change proposals, whether or not they have been changed since the last proposal was approved.

Standards Applied on Behalf of the Curriculum Committee

• Every course and every program must have at least two learning outcomes that meet the curriculum standards. 
• Course learning outcomes must focus on the learning that students will be assessed on during the class.  They cannot, for example, say that students will pass an industry exam after completing the course. 
• Program learning outcomes must focus on the learning that students will be assessed on before they complete the program.  They cannot, for example, say that students will transfer successfully. 
• Course and program learning outcomes must be observable, meaning that they cannot describe interior processes like understanding. appreciating, thinking critically, or knowing.  Instead, they must use observable actions like describing, identifying, explaining, comparing, creating, performing, assembling, using, applying, etc., so that faculty assessing the outcomes can see the evidence of students’ learning. 
• Course learning outcomes must follow from the course objectives.  That means that the objectives list the experiences and knowledge that students will accumulate throughout the course so that they are prepared to show their achievement of the learning outcomes.  If the course outcomes do not clearly follow from the objectives, then the proposal is sent back so that the faculty originator can consider what, if any, outcomes or objectives should be added or revised to create clear alignment. 
• Course learning outcomes and course objectives must follow from the Content/Body of Knowledge.  That means that if the Content/Body of Knowledge section of the CoR emphasizes content that is not addressed in the outcomes or objectives, the proposal will be sent back to the faculty originator so that they can consider what, if anything, may need to be added to the outcomes or objectives so that students will be well-prepared to be assessed on all of the most important learning expected in the course. 
• Program learning outcomes, course learning outcomes, and objectives must be free of typos and grammatical errors. 
• Course learning outcomes should not use the construction “Demonstrate the ability to.”  Instead, they should state the action that students will be observed doing when the learning outcome is assessed.  For this reason, an outcome like “Demonstrate a patient in-take interview” meets the outcome standards, but “Demonstrate the ability to use an industry protocol to interview a patient” is not considered direct and observable and will be sent back for revision.  In this example, the recommended revision would be: Apply an industry questionnaire protocol during a practice in-take interview. 
• Course and program learning outcomes should be written in a standard format with the observable verb as the first word of the sentence. 
• For courses that are 100-level (or 1000-level) or 200-level, we apply the additional standard that course learning outcomes must reflect appropriate levels of critical thinking to make articulation more assured.  One preferred way of making that critical thinking component clear is by using verbs associated with varying levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy so that the outcomes communicate the foundational knowledge that students have built during the class (e.g. identify, label, list, recognize) as well as the critical thinking activity in which they applied or extended their knowledge to explain, classify, predict, compare/contrast, etc.
• Please also refer to the Program and Course Approval Handbook. 

The SLO Reviewer communicates to faculty and departments the SLO-related requirements of Tech Review before the curriculum proposals get to that group for a final review.  Tech Review is the step before the proposals are added to the Curriculum agenda for approval. 

To learning more about Palomar College Curriculum, visit the Curriculum webpage.