Learning & Teaching

If you are creating new ILOs for a new or redesigned course, you should consider which aspect(s) of learning you would like to introduce, reinforce and assess. In order to do this, you might find it helpful to consult the UofG Graduate Attribute (GA) Matrix and the Guidelines for Programme and Course Design and Review 2017 (p.9).

• Consider what knowledge, skill or attribute you intend students to develop or reinforce by the end of the COIL course/activity;
• Use the descriptors in the left-hand column of the GA matrix in order to identify which GA is most appropriate for your course/subject;
• Use the academic or transferable dimension of the matrix in order to draft your COIL ILO.

The Graduate Attribute Matrix contains the attributes which define the Glasgow graduate in terms of the academic abilities, personal qualities and transferable skills our learners should have the opportunity to develop during their time at the University.

In this section we discuss how to use four of the GAs in order to develop a COIL ILO. (Note: other GAs might also be appropriate in your context, here we focus on the most likely candidates.)

• Effective Communicators: Articulate complex ideas with respect to the needs and abilities of diverse audiences.
• Experienced Collaborators: Engage with the scholarly community and respect others’ views and perspectives.
• Ethically and Socially Aware: Consider and act upon the ethical, social and global responsibilities of their actions.
• Reflective Learners: Use feedback productively to reflect on their work, achievements and self-identity

If you wish to adapt the ILOs for an existing course, you should consider which aspect of the current course you would like to COIL. There are three ways that you might adapt your existing set of ILOs in order to do this. You might refine the wording of an existing ILO, you might replace one of your current ILOs with a new COIL ILO, or you might add a new ILO to your existing ILO set. All of these options are equally acceptable, and your own context will help you to decide which is best for your course.

This option is for staff wanting to use a course ILO to create a set of criteria for a COIL activity. This could be part of the process of creating a new course or redesigning an existing one. Creating nested ILOs for a COIL course which has already been approved does not in itself need approval from the School Board of Study.

An alternative approach to writing or rewriting an ILO is to create what is sometimes called a ‘nested’ ILO. This approach is sometimes discouraged as it can create a long and complicated list and for this reason we do not recommend its use for course ILOs. However, it is appropriate to use in order to design a set of COIL ILOs or to create a set of criteria for a COIL activity within a course, and in particular to create a list of assessment criteria and/or a rubric. The process we will describe below is sometimes referred to as ‘unpacking’ an ILO to create assessment criteria.

1. Identify the ILO that you want to use in order to design and/or assess the COIL activity (note that this assessment can be summative or formative, and can include peer or self-assessment);
2. Identify each of the activities needed to achieve this ILO;
3. Use Bloom’s taxonomy to identify active verbs appropriate for the levels of knowledge and understanding.

Here you can find an example of nested ILOs from UCLA.

In this section, you will find examples of ILOs from courses that have included a COIL or COIL-type activity.

CULTURE AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING (COIL)

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

• explain principles of language teaching pedagogy;
• appraise how culture and language teaching interact;
• evaluate how theory and pedagogical practice interact;
• construct complex arguments across genres relevant to teaching practice.

PGDE Primary/BTech Ed (COIL) [note: ‘nested’ ILOs]

• Understanding, designing, and intercultural communicating for sustainability through engineering design process alongside problem and project-based learning: Design your own sustainable house;
• Developing critical and creative literacies in STEM;
• Engaging in Global learning discussions through presentation and discussion of group final model of sustainable house justifying choices of material in line with the meaning of sustainability for each country.

CHEMISTRY 1001 (non-COIL)

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

• demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of the basic facts and experimental basis of modern chemistry;
• solve elementary problems of a numeric or logical nature in the chemistry context;
• demonstrate practical skills in chemical techniques.

Added COIL ILO

• Articulate the basic facts of modern chemistry and communicate them with a diverse scholarly community

• UofG Guidelines for Writing Aims and Intended Learning Outcomes
• UofG Guidelines for Programme and Course Design and Review 2017