How to write ILOs

5 Steps to writing ILOs

It can be useful to consider using the following 5-step process in designing ILOs:

1. Decide on the Purpose
2. Identify the Content
3. Select the Appropriate Verb
4. Add the Context (when necessary)
5. Ensure Clarity

Below is more information about each of these steps, with reference to the examples on the Components of an ILO page.

Step 5: Clarity

To ensure that the ILO is well-written, the final step is to put the three elements together, and ensure that the whole makes sense - not to you as an expert, but to your students, who are novices in the area. This means that you will need to remove any jargon or discipline specific language, and replace them with plain language. For second and third year units, however, it would be appropriate to use language that students are familiar with from previous compulsory units in the course. 

When analysing your ILOs for clarity, ask yourself, "if English was my second language, would I be able to grasp the meaning of the learning outcomes expected?", "Have I avoided unnecessarily complex language and unexplained terminology?". 

You may find using a readability test useful in determining how easy your newly written ILOs are to understand. Read-able.com is an example of a useful tool to check readability of your ILOs. Our examples returned the result "should be easily understood by 18 to 19 year olds", which is probably at the highest level you would want.

In addition to checking readability, it is recommended that you seek peer review of your ILOs from your colleagues. Often the best colleagues for peer review of ILOs are those from a different discipline as they are more likely to identify discipline specific language that means little or something different to them.