Guide to Organizing Course-Level Student Learning Outcomes

All courses in the UNR General Catalog must have SLOs submitted by May 2016:

  • Remember that you should fill out the spreadsheet (inventory of courses and SLOs) submitted to your department chair in August 2015; once this spreadsheet is completed, send it to Russell Stone (), and he will see that all course SLOs are published in the catalog (do not use Curriculog for this project)
  • If there are courses in this inventory that you no longer offer or do not wish to offer, indicate this in the spreadsheet. These courses do not need SLOs, and they will be removed from the catalog.New courses that you have submitted through Curriculog will be published in the catalog, if approved, separately from this process.
  • There is no formal ‘approval’ process for SLOs. Once you have agreed on the catalog copy of course SLOs, Russell Stone will edit your submissions against the UCCC SLO Style Sheet (available at and prepare it for publication in the General Catalog.
  • If your learning outcomes are dictated by an accrediting body, please indicate this when you submit the spreadsheet.

The following suggestions are intended only as such.

Undergraduate Course SLOs

100-level courses: Students will be able to:

Identify, describe, recognize, use

Basic competencies, knowledge, skills needed to prepare for your program

Intermediate-level courses: Students will be able to:

Discuss, articulate, examine, compare

Major/disciplinary knowledge and skills needed to advance through your

program

400-level courses: Students will be able to:

Relate, argue, assess/evaluate, analyze, apply

Advanced knowledge and skills, and/or synthesis of knowledge and skills,

expected of seniors

*Use a standard set of SLOs for topics courses (for which the title is a generic “Topics”), based on common expectations for student performance (individual faculty members’ agendas will be reflected in syllabi).

If your special topics courses are encompassed within one area of study (e.g., Archaeology of North America; New World Civilizations; Old World, etc.), you may wish to write one stem for the outcome (Students will be able to xxx), based on skills common to all versions of the course and then include an interchangeable word or phrase for individual topics.

For example, PHIL 653 (Topics in Philosophy of Law) includes the SLO:

Students will be able to explain and interpret the ideas associated with philosophical theories of law in the philosophical literature.

The stem in italics may be applied to several topics courses, and the rest of the outcome may be tailored to specific topics.

Graduate Course SLOs

It will be helpful to remember:

  • 400-/600-level courses should include one SLO relevant to graduate students (e.g., an outcome based on a research or presentation/performance component)
  • 600-level courses should follow the model of 400-level course outcomes above
  • Use a standard set of SLOs for research courses, internships, colloquia, comprehensive exams, etc. For many such 600-/700-level courses, think in terms of what students will be able to complete
  • SLOs are not required for courses that are neither graded nor credit-based.

For thesis and dissertation courses, consider SLOs that are not discipline-specific but address the common requirements of many programs around campus. The following are building blocks for such outcomes:

Students will be able to:

-- formulate a thesis and organize a sustained, critical argument around it

-- conduct comprehensive research and synthesize information from a variety of sources

-- articulate original research thesis and supporting argument in a format that meets program requirements for a thesis/dissertation

-- present findings/argument of thesis/dissertation in a professional setting, to peers, faculty, and advisor, etc.