Keep it simple!
Designing principle: Keep it simple! Make a SLO that can be assessed without tying yourself into knots. Don't make a SLO so complex that it is impossible to design instruments to assess it effectively.
Grant Wiggins in his Educative Assessment (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998) says that in assessment "the challenge is to design taskss that require thoughtful responsiveness, not just plugged-in knowledge and skill" (37). He continues, "if you want to produce performers, you had better start having them perform as soon as possible, as is done in all youth arts, athletics, and clubs."
Wiggins has what he calls "Skill Execution Versus Intelligent Adjustment." Examples: Instead of learning Spanish vocabulary words having to do with food and reiterating them on an objective exam, a student would be able to read the menu in a Spanish restaurant and order in Spanish. The key to designing SLOs is really to ask the question, "What can the student do with what he/she learns in the class?
Student learning outcomes give students a way to think and talk about what they have learned.