This article is focused on a method for writing student learning objectives for a course (SLOs).  I find writing learning objectives challenging when working alone.  They can be written at so many different levels of detail.  Almost every example or question in a textbook has an implicit objective associated with it, so writing objectives can end up being a very long process.  Finding more overarching, higher level, objectives seems important to be able to do because of how easy it is to lose sight of the big picture amongst reams of specific objectives.

According to the authors of the article (and other articles they cite) teachers often general learning objectives in real-time, while teaching.  To aid pre-planning, they outline a technique for generating SLOs.  Some notes on the SLOs: if students meet them, they should be able to solve multivariable problems at the level of the course, similarly to the way a more trained-mathematician would.

In the FAST-SLO method, I will first list a bunch of thoughts, ideas, concepts, and topics that I associate with some topic in the course.  This is all about massive idea generation.  I will also try to map these so that they are getting connected up.  After creating the “FAST” via this thought-generation phase, I will be creating just a few SLOs.