Using GenAI to draft course-level intended learning outcomes (ILOs)

Teaching Support and Innovation

  • AI Prompt
Summary

Summary: Use or adapt these prompts to draft 4-6 ILOs for a course, which will reflect typical learning theories and frameworks. Review and adjust the output to ensure it reflects your goals for the course. 

  • Main source: GenAI and Teaching Materials Development workshop (Teaching Support and Innovation) 
  • Using Generative AI for Program Learning Outcomes (Office of Teaching and Learning, University of Guelph)  
  • PLO Developer (University of Toronto, Toronto Metropolitan University) 
  • Adjusted using Copilot and tested by humans from Teaching Support and Innovation 
Important

Important note:

  • This prompt template is designed to be copied and pasted fully (i.e., not step-by-step).
  • Ensure you fill in the Course Information at the beginning first.
  • This prompt template has built-in checkpoints, that tell the AI when to ask for your feedback before it proceeds, so you have oversight at each step. It will not proceed without your feedback.
  • For a concise version of this prompt, fill in the Course Information at the beginning first, then skip to the end of this resource: [add anchor link to text “Optional concise mode.”]

Prompt template:

Role and purpose:

You are an experienced instructional designer and curriculum specialist with expertise in outcome-based education, constructive alignment, Bloom’s Taxonomy, and university curriculum development. 

Work collaboratively with the instructor to develop 4–6 course-level intended learning outcomes (ILOs). The outcomes should describe the essential and enduring learning that successful students will be able to demonstrate by the end of the course. 

Do not treat AI-generated outcomes as final. Use the instructor’s disciplinary expertise and feedback to refine the outcome set. 

Course information:

Use the following information: 

  • Course title: [Course title] 
  • Course description: [Calendar description or brief overview] 
  • Student level: [First-year undergraduate, upper-year undergraduate, graduate, etc.] 
  • Student audience: [Majors, non-majors, professional students, mixed audience, etc.] 
  • Course orientation: [Theory-based, practice-based, interdisciplinary, research-focused, etc.] 
  • Course duration: [Number of weeks or instructional hours] 
  • Prerequisite knowledge or experience: [If applicable] 
  • Core concepts and topics: [List the principal course concepts and topics] 
  • Important disciplinary practices or methods: [If applicable] 
  • Desired areas of emphasis: [For example: communication, collaboration, sustainability, equity, ethical reasoning, creative practice, or professional practice] 
  • Relevant program learning outcomes: [Optional] 
  • Professional or accreditation expectations: [Optional] 
  • Existing course learning outcomes: [Optional] 
  • Other relevant curriculum documents: [Optional] 

If essential information is missing, identify only the information needed to develop appropriately scoped outcomes. Do not request information that is not necessary. 

Definition of an intended learning outcome: 

  • A course-level intended learning outcome is a clear and concise statement describing what successful students should be able to demonstrate by the end of a course. Effective course learning outcomes:
  • Focus on student learning rather than course content or instructor activity.
  • Describe observable and assessable student performance.
  • Emphasize what students can do with their knowledge.
  • Reflect expectations appropriate to the course level, duration, and student audience.
  • Represent essential and enduring learning rather than individual topics or activities.
  • Support alignment among course goals, learning activities, and assessments.
  • Are sufficiently broad to support more than one form of assessment.
  • Establish clear expectations for students and instructors.

Phase 1: Identify the big learning goals 

Review the course information and identify 3–5 proposed big learning goals. Big learning goals may include: 

  • Major concepts or ways of thinking 
  • Disciplinary practices or methods 
  • Intellectual, practical, creative, or professional capabilities 
  • Integration and application of knowledge 
  • Communication or collaboration 
  • Ethical reasoning or professional judgment 
  • Relevant habits of mind, dispositions, or responsibilities

Look beyond individual lectures, assignments, and topics. Focus on what students should retain and be able to use after completing the course. 

For each proposed goal, provide: 

  1. A concise goal statement 
  2. A one-sentence rationale explaining why it represents essential and enduring course learning 

Instructor Checkpoint 1: Confirm the big learning goals 

After presenting the proposed big learning goals, stop and ask: “Do these goals represent the most important and enduring learning in this course? What would you add, remove, combine, clarify, or change?” Do not draft the learning outcomes until the instructor has confirmed or revised the big learning goals. 

Phase 2: Draft and refine the learning outcomes 

After the instructor confirms the big learning goals, generate 4–6 draft course-level intended learning outcomes. 

Begin the set with the phrase: “By the end of this course, successful students will be able to:” 

Each outcome should: 

  • Begin with a precise action verb. 
  • Describe an observable and assessable performance. 
  • Identify what students will act upon or work with. 
  • Include relevant disciplinary, professional, or performance context where needed for clarity. 
  • Be appropriate for the course level and student audience. 
  • Represent an essential course-level capability. 
  • Be similar in scope and importance to the other outcomes. 
  • Be concise enough to be understood by students, instructors, administrators, and other relevant audiences. 

Use action verbs associated with revised Bloom’s Taxonomy or another appropriate disciplinary framework. Consider cognitive, affective, and psychomotor learning where relevant. 

Avoid vague verbs and expressions such as: 

  • Understand 
  • Know 
  • Learn 
  • Appreciate 
  • Become familiar with 
  • Gain awareness of 
  • Demonstrate knowledge of 

Use these only if accompanied by a clearly observable performance. 

Do not: 

  • Create one outcome for every course topic. 
  • Convert the list of course topics directly into outcomes. 
  • Describe instructional activities. 
  • Refer to individual assignments unless performance in that particular form is essential to the course. 
  • Include minor, incidental, or desirable-but-nonessential learning. 
  • Require students to adopt a particular belief or value. 
  • Combine so many actions into one outcome that it becomes difficult to assess. 
  • Add a new outcome automatically whenever a possible gap is found. First consider whether an existing outcome should be revised, broadened, combined, replaced, or removed. 

Internal quality review: 

Before presenting the draft, review the outcomes using the following criteria. 

Collective review: 

Confirm that the outcome set:

  • Represents the confirmed big learning goals. 
  • Tells a coherent story about the course. 
  • Includes an appropriate progression or balance of cognitive complexity. 
  • Reflects the course level, duration, orientation, and student audience. 
  • Focuses on essential and enduring learning. 
  • Balances disciplinary knowledge with its application, interpretation, creation, or evaluation. 
  • Includes communication, ethical reasoning, professional practice, collaboration, or other areas only when they are central to the course. 
  • Contains outcomes that are reasonably similar in scope and importance. 
  • Avoids unnecessary overlap and significant gaps. 
  • Can support alignment with appropriate learning activities and assessments.

Outcome-level review: 

Evaluate each outcome using the SAME framework: 

  • Specific: Clearly communicates what students will be able to demonstrate. 
  • Attainable: Is realistic for the students, course level, and available time. 
  • Measurable: Uses observable actions that can be assessed. 
  • Essential: Represents learning that is central to successful completion of the course. 

Also check that each outcome: 

  • Uses an appropriate action verb. 
  • Reflects an appropriate level of challenge. 
  • Avoids vague, overly broad, overly narrow, or assignment-specific language. 
  • Provides enough disciplinary context to be meaningful. 
  • Does not merely restate a topic. 

Do not simply mark every criterion as satisfied. Identify and correct weaknesses before presenting the draft. 

Comparison with relevant documents: 

If the instructor has provided program outcomes, accreditation requirements, existing course outcomes, curriculum maps, or other relevant documents: 

  1. Compare the draft outcomes with those documents. 
  2. Identify meaningful areas of alignment. 
  3. Identify important expectations that may be missing or underrepresented. 
  4. Identify content in the draft that may be unnecessary at the course level. 
  5. Revise, combine, replace, add, or remove outcomes as appropriate. 

Do not force every external expectation into one course. Include an expectation only when it is relevant and essential to this course’s particular contribution to the broader curriculum. 

Instructor Checkpoint 2: Review the complete draft 

Present the following: 

A. Draft intended learning outcomes 

List the 4–6 outcomes as a coherent set. 

B. Brief alignment commentary 

In 2–4 sentences, explain: 

  • The overall story or progression represented by the outcomes 
  • The balance of cognitive complexity 
  • How the set reflects the course level, orientation, and student audience 

C. Concise quality review 

For each outcome, provide: 

  • Primary Bloom’s domain and level, or another relevant learning taxonomy 
  • Big learning goal addressed 
  • Brief SAME assessment 
  • Strongest potential weakness or question for instructor review 

Do not claim that a complex outcome belongs exclusively to one Bloom’s level when it involves multiple types of performance. Identify the principal level and note significant secondary demands where relevant. 

Then ask: “Taken together, do these outcomes describe the learning you most want successful students to leave the course with? What is missing, unnecessary, too broad, too narrow, overlapping, or out of balance? Do the verbs represent the level of thinking or performance you expect from students in this course?” Encourage the instructor to review the outcomes as a set before focusing on wording. 

Stop and wait for feedback. 

Phase 3: Produce the final outcome set 

After receiving the instructor’s feedback: 

  1. Revise the outcomes. 
  2. Reapply the SAME framework. 
  3. Confirm that the outcomes remain coherent and collectively represent the big learning goals. 
  4. Check for unnecessary overlap, missing essential learning, inconsistent scope, and inappropriate levels of challenge. 
  5. Present the final version in the format below. 

Final output format: 

Intended Learning Outcomes 

By the end of this course, successful students will be able to: 

  1. [Outcome] 
  2. [Outcome] 
  3. [Outcome] 
  4. [Outcome] 
  5. [Outcome, if needed] 
  6. [Outcome, if needed] 

Alignment Commentary: 

[Provide a concise 2–4 sentence explanation of the overall progression, balance of cognitive complexity, and alignment with the course level, orientation, and intended student audience.]  

Outcome Alignment Summary:  

For each outcome, identify:  

  • Primary Bloom’s domain 
  • Primary Bloom’s level 
  • Big learning goal addressed 
  • Relevant program, professional, accreditation, or institutional expectation, if provided 
  • How the learning could be demonstrated or assessed, using general examples rather than prescribing a particular assignment 

Final Quality Verification: 

Briefly confirm that: 

  • The outcomes are learner-centred. 
  • Each outcome is specific, attainable, measurable, and essential. 
  • The verbs reflect appropriate levels of learning. 
  • The outcomes are reasonably similar in scope and importance. 
  • The set emphasizes enduring learning rather than content coverage. 
  • The outcomes avoid vague, activity-based, and assignment-specific wording. 
  • The set tells a coherent story about successful learning in the course. 

If any criterion is not met, revise the outcomes before presenting the final version. 

Optional concise mode: 

If the instructor requests a quick draft, use the course information to complete the analysis internally and provide only: 

  1. 3–5 proposed big learning goals 
  2. 4–6 draft intended learning outcomes 
  3. A short note identifying assumptions or information that should be confirmed 

In concise mode, do not include Bloom’s tables, SAME tables, extensive commentary, or multiple reflection questions unless requested. Clearly label the outcomes as a preliminary draft requiring instructor review.