Course Goals and Outcomes: We Can't Measure It All

Increasingly, we are being encouraged and even required by administrators to align teaching goals directly to course assignments. I think it is OK not to do this--at least not all of them. Not everything I teach has to be measured. Think about it this way: if I give an exam in a class, do I ask a question about each and every concept that I teach and believe to be important? Of course I don't! That exam would take at least as long as the time that we spend together in class! Instead, I test on a few select concepts as a sample of what I taught. Why would our course, curriculum, or major goals be any different?