Building Classroom Activities that Lead to Outcomes Achievement

After mapping the curriculum, a faculty member should be well acquainted with not only each learning outcome but also the extent to which related skills and knowledge are included in the course. Faculty should know at this point if students are simply introduced to the content in the course. Faculty should know if they will reinforce previously learned content, giving students the chance to practice related skills or if the student is expected to demonstrate mastery of related skills in the course.

It is important to consider a taxonomy, such as Bloom’s, in which levels of thinking are considered as activities are built into the classroom. When connecting thinking to a curriculum map, the Baltimore County school system considers this a “Three-Story Intellect”²⁴ and relates each “story” to both the level of thinking and of demonstration.

Introducing knowledge and skills (knowledge and comprehension) is the “basement”.
Practicing the use of knowledge or skills (application and analysis) is “the ground floor“.
Demonstrating or mastering knowledge and skills (synthesis and evaluation) is “the penthouse”.

Refer back to Tables 3, 4, and 5 in the previous section for several verbs that are appropriate when creating activities and assignments in class to address the various levels of expectation.

Once a faculty member knows the level of expected learning for an outcome, there are many activities, either introduced by the instructor or completed by students, to accomplish the intended level. Linda Nilson (2010)²⁵ provides a crosswalk of methods and the most likely level of associated learning. She suggests that lectures alone tend to present knowledge but no higher-level thinking. If some type of interaction is included, students may understand the content better, and with intentional design, they may engage in higher-level thinking. According to Nilson, activities that lead to greater learning are those which require writing or speaking, providing feedback to others, case studies, high levels of inquiry, projects, reflections, service-learning, and clinical or on-site work (p. 107).

In other words, if a curriculum map verifies that only an introduction to knowledge or skills is necessary, a lecture may suffice, and instructors can often select activities that require only lower levels of thinking. However, if knowledge and skills are to be practiced by the student, instructors should seek activities that will require students to apply and analyze content. Finally, if students must demonstrate mastery of knowledge or skills, instructors should consider classroom activities that will promote the higher-level thinking skills of synthesis and evaluation.

Table 14 provides sample ideas to align instructional methods and classroom activities to learning outcomes. Lists are not intended to be comprehensive.

Table 14. Sample Classroom Activities Aligned to Learning Outcomes

Desired Coverage or Demonstration of Achievement
Introduce Related Content	Students Practice Related Skills	Students Demonstrate Mastery of Outcome
1. Lecture 2. Slide presentation 3. Provide handout(s) 4. Provide worksheet(s) 5. Group discussion 6. Chunk content 7. Relate to prior knowledge 8. Content outlines 9. Examples and graphics 10. Students to recall, identify, restate, and relate	1. Discuss and summarize 2. Write 3. Labs 4. Self-assess 5. Review 6. Collaborate 7. Expand outlines 8. Make connections 9. Solve structured problems 10. Select strategies 11. Develop questions 12. Classify, categorize 13. Analyze 14. Brainstorm	1. Complete a project 2. Conduct research 3. Solve complex problems 4. Perform a case study 5. Evaluate previous or peer work 6. Justify and defend 7. Create models 8. Provide thorough explanations 9. Develop examples metaphors, analogies 10. Draw inferences and conclusions 11. Explain validity of information

²⁴A three-story intellect: Bloom’s taxonomy and Costa’s Levels of Questioning. Retrieved from https://www.bcps.org/offices/lis/researchcourse/documents/questioning_prompts.pdf

²⁵Nilson, L.B. (2010). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors (3rd Ed). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass