Exploring Learning Outcomes in D2L Brightspace

Overview

The new Learning Outcome tool is more streamlined and less cluttered than the traditional Competencies tool. Within D2L Brightspace, the new Learning Outcome tool can be enabled in courses. We provide the recommended methods for exploring and implementing Learning Outcomes within D2L Brightspace. 

In addition, we suggest you review Understanding Competencies and Learning Outcomes and why the Competencies tool needs to remain on in Brightspace. 

Exploring Learning Outcomes in Brightspace

When thinking about the Learning Outcomes tool, let's consider the extent we'd like to explore and implement the Brightspace tool. 

Initial Exploration in QA

1. In this initial stage, the Learning Outcomes tool is best to experiment with first in the QA environment. 
   Note: Before progressing with this stage, you may contact the system office Learning Technologies team to schedule a meeting to discuss implementation goals, details, and reporting considerations.
2. Coordinate with your Brightspace Campus Site Admin to enable permissions for others to use the Learning Outcomes tool in QA.
3. A limited number of faculty or staff at your institution have access to the Learning Outcomes tool to try it out for a limited time. They can experiment with the functionality of the Learning Outcomes tool in their courses for a few weeks before the QA environment gets it's monthly refresh. (Learn about the timing of the QA refresh in the Brightspace Monthly Updates and Scheduled Items.)
4. Once you have explored the tool sufficiently in QA, we can move to Production. 

Small pilot of courses in Production

1. In this stage, the Learning Outcomes tool is implemented by faculty within 1-2 programs or departments at your institution. 
   Important: Before progressing with this stage, please contact the system office Learning Technologies team to schedule a meeting to discuss implementation goals, details, and reporting considerations. Invite your Brightspace Campus Site Admin to the meeting. 
2. When ready, coordinate with your Brightspace Campus Site Admin to set the org Learning Outcomes tool to default 'off' in courses, so instructors (or support staff) must enable it within a course. 
   Important: The tool must be enabled in any destination course before copying from a course that has learning outcomes set up. Otherwise, the outcome alignments will be need to be re-aligned in the destination course. 
3. From the main homepage, select the gear menu icon (next to where your name is located) and select Learning Outcomes to navigate use the default achievement scale (or create a scale).
4. Faculty enter their course outcomes manually via their course Learning Outcomes tool. (Learn more about the instructor's experience manually adding outcomes in their courses.)
5. Once you have explored the tool sufficiently in a small pilot, we can move to a wider number of courses and departments. 

Share Learning Outcomes across a wide number of courses and departments

1. For this stage, your institution has defined program, institution, and/or course outcomes to be implemented by faculty across many programs or departments.
   Important: Before progressing with this stage, please contact the system office Learning Technologies team to schedule a meeting to discuss implementation goals, details, and reporting considerations. 
2. From the main homepage, select the gear menu icon (next to where your name is located) and Learning Outcomes. As needed, import additional outcome sets via CSV.
3. When ready, coordinate with your Brightspace Campus Site Admin to set the org Learning Outcomes tool to default 'on' in courses, so all instructors can use it. 
4. Faculty can pull the program and institution outcome sets into their course-level Learning Outcomes tool. (Learn more about the instructor's experience pulling outcome sets into their courses.)

Have questions? Please reach out to the system office Learning Technologies team to schedule time to talk. 

Considerations as a Brightspace CSA

Achievement Scales

An achievement scale is used across all courses and outcomes, and is the universal scale on which assessment is tracked and reported. As a result, it is important to define the achievement scale once, with collaboration from academic partners. Learning outcome evaluations are granular measures of knowledge, comprehension, and ability. The achievement scale is used to assess an individual’s ability in that moment of their learning journey.

Default Scale

Based on early pilot feedback with the Learning Outcomes tool, we have included the default achievement scale in your organization Learning Outcomes tool. 

1. Navigate to Admin Tools > Learning Outcomes.
2. Select the Achievement Scale tab.
3. Notice that there is a default achievement scale as "Met, Not Met, Not Evidence". 

You may view the scale by selecting the name. The scale has three levels. 

• Met, 70%
• Not Met, 1%
• No Evidence, 0%

Achievement scale creation

Important: If possible, it is best to limit your institution to one achievement scale, which is the default "Met, Not Met, and No Evidence" achievement scale. 

Samples of other achievement scales are:

• 2-level scale: Met, Not Met
• 3-level scale: Advanced, Proficient, Developing
• 4-level scale: Demonstrated, Partly Demonstrated, Not Demonstrated, Not Measured

Create an achievement scale

1. Navigate to Admin Tools > Learning Outcomes.
2. Select Achievement Scale, then Create Scale.
3. Enter a Name, and the number of Levels.
   Note: D2L recommends limiting the achievement scale to a maximum of five levels, as performance is not guaranteed for scales over five levels.
4. Enter the Name of each level.
5. Choose the appropriate color and percentage for each level.
   Important: Keep the Map levels to percentage scores option selected for the best experience with rubrics and quiz questions. 
6. Select Save and Close.

The achievement scale is now immediately available to any course using Learning Outcomes. Once the achievement scale has been used for assessment in any course, it cannot be deleted at the organization level. 

Create Outcome Sets and import outcomes

An Outcome Set is a grouping of outcomes. This could be institutional outcomes, program outcomes, or course outcomes. To create the outcome set:

1. Navigate to Admin Tools > Learning Outcomes.
2. Select Create Outcome Set.
3. Enter a name for the outcome set and select Save. 
4. Expand the Achievement Scale section.
5. Do one of the following: 
   • To keep the default scale, select Add Scale > Select Existing. Select "Met, Not Met, No Evidence" and select Add Selected. 
   • To create a custom scale for the program's outcome set, select Add Scale > Create New. Enter the name of the scale. Enter the number of levels. Select Map levels to percentage scores. Enter the names for each level, the corresponding color, and the corresponding percentage score. When finished, select Create. 
6. Locate the csv file of the program outcomes you want to import. 
7. Select Import Outcomes > Import from file.
   
8. Select Select a CSV file to import.
   
9. After it’s uploaded, select Import.
   
10. Select Close.