Student comprehension of planned learning outcomes

Assessment and learning outcomes are important topics for higher education folk as we look for ways to find out if our students are learning what their classes are designed to teach them. In general, we create planned learning outcomes for our classes and, hopefully, tie our assessments to those objectives.

According to this month's League for Innovations Learning Abstract, Making Student Learning Visible by Shree Iyengar and Ken Jarvis a consortium of 24 community colleges are in the process of finding ways to go beyond rote memorization and test cramming to truly assess learning. [Link to full article].

The full article is well worth the time it takes to read and reflect on it. One part did stand out to me, though. Reprsentatives from the member colleges got together for a workshop and compiled common issues.

"One central issue emerged: The faculty’s identification of student
learning outcomes has not yet generally led to students using them for
their learning. In this regard, it was noted that faculty discussions
on student learning did not involve students at key points or at
appropriate levels in almost all institutions."

Think about that! We spend all this time on creating learning objectives and mapping them to assessments, but, at least based on the consensus of this group, our students don't know that's what they are supposed to be learning! Our students do not equate instructor stated learning objectives that they find on our syllabii to the idea that they can cram for a test and get a decent grade. But it shouldn't be about the grade, should it? Shouldn't it be about the learning?

To me, this is another argument for doing away with testing and finding basic, simple alternatives where students can demonstrate their proficiency with learning objectives. At least they would know what they didn't already know, I think. The group in the League article is investigating various corrective models. I wonder what would happen if we kept it really simple and asked our students to SHOW us what they have learned.