Student Learning outcomes are statements of the knowledge, skills and abilities

individual students should possess and can demonstrate upon completion of a learning
experience or sequence of learning experiences.

“Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (published in 1956 and revised in 2001)

gives you a way to express learning outcomes in a way that reflects cognitive skills.”
  
6 LEVELS
 
There are 6 levels (lowest to highest cognitive skills):
1. Knowledge/remembering - Retrieving and recalling relevant knowledge from long-term memory
2. Comprehension/understanding - Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic
messages through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring,
comparing, and explaining
3. Application/applying- Carrying out or using a procedure through executing or
implementing; applying knowledge to actual situations
4. Analysis/analyzing- Breaking material into constituent parts; determining how the parts relate to
one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and
attributing
5. Evaluation/evaluating - Making judgments based on criteria and standards through
checking and critiquing
6. Synthesis/creating - Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; re-
organizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing

Power Verbs
You can use Bloom's taxonomy to identify verbs to describe participants’ learning. Examples of
learning outcomes might include:
1. Knowledge/Remembering: define, list, name, state, tell;
2. Comprehension/Understanding: describe, explain, identify, locate, recognize, sort,
translate;
3. Application/Applying: apply, use, demonstrate, implement, perform;
4. Analysis/Analyzing: analyze, categorize, compare, differentiate, distinguish, compare
and contrast, inspect;
5. Evaluation/Evaluating: assess, critique, evaluate, rank, rate, measure, justify;
6. Synthesis/Creating: construct, design, formulate, organize, synthesize, make, prepare,
create.

Characteristics of Learning Outcomes/ Learning Objectives

Specific: Use clear, direct language to tell the learner exactly what he or she should learn and
what he or she should be able to do after the training. Don’t be vague, unclear, or misleading.
Measurable: An objective is measurable if and only if you can conduct a series of test and
observation regarding the level of acquisition of the learner. The point of setting a learning
objective is to determine how much the learner can meet, perform, or satisfy it.
Achievable: Your learning objective must be something your learners have a chance of
completing/satisfying. They must have enough pre-existing knowledge, time, and similar
resources. For example, you wouldn’t create a learning objective that asks an elementary school
child to construct a rocket in an hour–it’s just not achievable. While checking your objectives at
this level, make sure your learning objective isn’t too easy, either.
Relevant: The objective should be something the learner sees the value in learning. Don’t teach
material that’s not important or won’t be used.
Time-bound: It must be done in a certain period of time.