See and Think

Specific, measurable goals help you design your course and assess its success. To clearly articulate them, consider these questions to help you determine what you want your students to know and be able to do at the end of your course.

• What are the most important concepts (ideas, methods, theories, approaches, perspectives, and other broad themes of your field, etc.) that students should be able to understand, identify, or define at the end of your course?

• What would constitute a "firm understanding", a "good identification", and so on, and how would you assess this? What lower-level facts or information would students need to have mastered and retained as part of their larger conceptual structuring of the material?

• What questions should your students be able to answer at the end of the course? 

• What are the most important skills that students should develop and be able to apply in and after your course (quantitative analysis, problem-solving, close reading, analytical writing, critical thinking, asking questions, knowing how to learn, etc.)?

• How will you help the students build these skills, and how will you help them test their mastery of these skills?

• Do you have any affective goals for the course, such as students developing a love for the field?