“At the end of my course, students should be able to …”: The benefits of creating and using effective learning goals

At the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU), several science departments – including Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (MCDB) – are working to improve undergraduate science education as part of the Science Education Initiative (SEI). The SEI is a 5-year project designed to support faculty-led, departmental-wide improvements in students’ learning of and engagement in science. In each of the five funded departments, faculty are taking a scholarly approach to transforming their courses and introducing proven teaching practices. An important first step in course transformation has been to define explicit learning goals (also known as “learning outcomes” or “objectives”) for each course. In this paper, we focus on the process and benefit of writing learning goals, with specific examples from CU’s MCDB department.