About this workshop

Introduction

This workshop focuses on creating Goals, Objectives, and Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) related to teaching topics related to interaction and pragmatics by focusing on a number of exercises designed to encourage reflection upon what teachers expect their students to do.
Part 1 – introduces the topic of creating SLOs and discusses the importance of formulating concrete, active, and measurable goals.
Part 2 and 3 – focus on exercises where the teachers revise pre-written SLOs (Exercise 1) and formulate SLOs related to a specific task (Exercise 2).
Part 3 – Faculty’s perspectives and concluding discussion
Part 4 – shifts the focus to teaching about requests, first by asking the instructors to think about the actions and considerations that go into creating the SLOs, and then analyzing data extracts.
Part 5 – concludes the workshop by returning to the idea of actions and considerations, and then focusing on formulating SLOs that take into account what was found in the data extracts.
Upon completion of this workshop, it is expected that teachers will formulate SLOs with a clear focus upon what the learner accomplishes, which should then influence the creation of scoring rubrics for later assessments.

Time commitment

1 hour 20 mins

Before you start

1. Consider your own reasons for devising goals, objectives, and student learning outcomes as you plan your tasks, lessons, units, and syllabi.
2. For any given task or lesson, how do you know that the students have met the goals?
3. When teaching pragmatic or interactional patterns (i.e., requests, ordering food at a restaurant, etc.), to what degree do the goals and tasks reflect a stereotypical script or are they based upon authentic examples of real world usage? If they are the latter, how do you decide on which features to focus on as task goals?

Workshop videos

Introduction to Devising Student Learning Outcomes for Teaching Interactional Competence

An introduction to devising SLOs, focusing on active, concrete, and measurable outcomes that focus on what students do, not on psychological predicates such as “remember” or “understand”

Exercise 1: Revising SLOs

The teachers revise pre-written SLOs (see documents) to reflect the principles laid out in Part 1.

Exercise 2: Writing SLOs for a Restaurant Task

The teachers devise SLOs for a task based around restaurant interactions (seedocuments), considering first the actions that are required to complete the task, and then writing objectives that reflect the principles laid out in Part 1.

Exercise 3: What Happens When We Make Requests

The teachers first consider the various actions that are involved in request sequences and other important contextual variables. They then analyze four data extracts that provide examples of the how request sequences are organized and how the actions are accomplished.

Conclusion: Devising SLOs Related to Teaching Requests

The teachers return to the various actions that are involved in request sequences and other important contextual variables, then formulate SLOs based upon the analysis in Part 4.

Documents

SLO Exercises 1 and 2
SLO Exercise 3 – Request Extracts
Devising SLOs

Quizzes

Devising Student Learning Outcomes for Teaching Interactional Competence