Instruction Librarians' Toolkit

When planning your lessons, start with the end (the results, the learning outcomes) and work backward to plan what activities, lectures, discussions, and other learning experiences need to be included to support student achievement.

1. Identify desired results: What will students learn?
2. Determine acceptable evidence: What will success look like?
3. Plan learning experiences and instruction: What will students do?

Good learning outcomes:

• Are measurable / “judgeable”
• Are clear to the student, faculty, and librarian
• Are transferable (can be applied to other learning contexts)
• Match to the level (course, 50 minute session, program)
• Use a variety of levels of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy
• Relate to the ACRL Framework

- Debra Gilchrist

Image source: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/

Research shows that active, social, contextual, engaging, and student-owned learning experiences lead to better learning outcomes. We also know that students begin to lose their attention after about 10 minutes of lecture, so sequence your lesson to balance talking with an activity. Cornell University Center for Teaching Excellence website has some great examples of collaborative learning exercises and explains the science behind the pedagogy.