By Alexa Clemmons, Director of Product at Codon Learning
Kelly Hennessey and Scott Freeman recently posted a preprint of their National Science Foundation-funded study on Vision & Change-inspired lesson-level learning objectives (LLLOs) for the majors’ introductory biology curriculum. Their project resulted in 163 nationally evaluated LLLOs that were identified via input from over 800 biology instructors around the US. Some might ask: Why should I care about LLLOs?
In the article’s abstract, the authors argue one reason quite elegantly.
When a course is designed [using explicit learning objectives that can be aligned with assessments and active learning exercises], students have opportunities for the practice and support they need to learn, and instructors can collect the evidence they need to evaluate whether students have mastered key concepts and skills.*
In other words, LLLOs are statements that translate course-level learning goals into something that students and instructors can use. Course-level learning goals serve as the North star of a course. These goals, typically found in the syllabus, describe ambitious but abstract ways the course hopes to further a student’s expertise. LLLOs are the step-by-step driving directions. They are fine-grained, measurable descriptions of what a student should know or be able to do after a lesson (most synchronous courses cover 2-5 LLLOs per class session).
Instructors use LLLOs to guide summative assessment writing. Students use LLLOs to guide and monitor their progress while studying. In other words, LLLOs make the curriculum intentional and transparent.
The National Academies recently invited public feedback on a new report draft: A Framework for Equitable and Effective Teaching in Undergraduate STEM Education. They propose seven principles of equitable and effective education, including: “Principle #7: Intentionality and transparency support more equitable opportunities.” They argue:
Explicitly informing students of policies and priorities will mitigate the negative effects of the “hidden curriculum” that frequently excludes first generation students and those who are not well connected to campus communities and will help students achieve their learning goals (Winter & Cotton, 2012; Koutsouris et al., 2021; Rossouw & Frick, 2023).
LLLOs are an essential part of informing students of the course priorities by providing them with observable markers of their success.
So why isn’t everyone already using LLLOs? Because it’s hard! They take a lot of time to write in a way that is both measurable (i.e., how would you assess students?) and that students can understand. Hennessey and Freeman have developed a high-quality set of LLLOs that are now a part of the open community.
However, there’s still one more problem. How do you keep all of your assessments and materials in alignment with your LLLOs? In practice, designing a truly aligned course is nearly impossible without good software. This is where Codon Learning comes in. In our platform, you can use the Hennessey and Freeman LLLOs, edit them as you wish, and align them with high-quality assessments and novel Readiness Readings. As the LLLO national evaluation project was winding down, Scott Freeman joined our team to develop materials aligned to the 163 LLLOs. You can learn more about this project and Freeman’s motivation to work with us in this interview.
In Codon’s platform, LLLOs are not just an administrative requirement, slowly growing irrelevant as a course evolves. In our platform, faculty and students use them every day. The data that our platform generates are returned to students and to instructors to make everyone more accountable, effective, and engaged teachers and learners.
““The biggest draw of Codon is the unique Study Path that helps students develop their metacognitive skills and provides learning-objective-based structure for students.””
Alexa Clemmons currently serves as the director of product at Codon Learning. Prior to joining Codon, she was teaching and doing education research at the University of Washington. At UW, she developed the BioSkills Guide, a project to create and validate national measurable learning outcomes for the "Vision and Change" core competencies.
Footnote:
Hennessey and Freeman cite three major and interrelated justifications for using lesson level LOs that are well-written and appropriately scaffolded and framed during instruction (Orr et al., 2022):
LOs are essential to backward design — widely considered to be the gold standard in course design.
When directed or guided by instructors, LOs give students a reliable and efficient way to focus their study efforts — enough so that instructors should no longer hear questions such as, “Do we have to know” or “Will X be on the test?”
LOs directly address two salient characteristics of novice learners that have been characterized by cognitive scientists: an inability to distinguish more-important from less-important information, and an inability to see connections between topics or integrate information (Council et al., 2000).