Alignment

Alignment is the idea of “critical course elements working together to ensure that students achieve the desired learning outcomes.”
The concept of alignment is  central to  the Quality Matters curriculum. According to  Quality Matters, successful courses are  built upon a foundation of solid, measurable course and module learning objectives. Every decision an instructor makes about  instructional materials, course activities, and course tools ought to then align with the learning objectives and support appropriate assessments. This design structure, like an architectural structure, lays the skeleton for  a quality learning experience.

Technologies

Here are a few tools and practices which you may find helpful when evaluating and designing for alignment:

• UAF is a QM member institution. As a faculty member, you have  free access to the full library of QM research and support materials.
• Create a working document to help plan your course alignment. Google Docs (Template 1; Template 2; Template 3) or Sheets (Template) can be a great place to collaborate with your designer, or with a colleague.
• A mind mapping tool such as Mindmeister.com can be helpful for brainstorming your learning objectives and activities.

Questions and Considerations

Must everything align? Recent debates in online learning circles have questioned the focus on objectives and alignment, calling instead  for messiness, emergence, and/or not-yetness.  According to Amy Collier, a leading thinker in this debate,  “Not-yetness is not satisfying every condition, not fully understanding something,not check-listing everything, not tidying everything, not trying to solve every problem…but creating space for emergence to take us to new and unpredictable places, to help us better understand the problems we are trying to solve.” Read more here.

ED F653 Instructional Design

Course Objective

1. Evaluate and enhance Personal Learning Environments

Lesson Objective

1. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your PLE
2. Select appropriate sources to enhance your PLE

Assessment

Write a one-page reflection paper to address your strategies for continued growth through participation in your PLE. Include progress you made this week in establishing or freshening your Twitter, Diigo and Google+ accounts as well as any other online services or venues in which you participate. If applicable, recount any challenges you faced and what methods you used to overcome them.

ATM 101 – Weather and Climate of Alaska

Course Objectives

1. Define, describe, illustrate and test the scientific principles that underlie the structure and behavior of the atmosphere
2. Employ the scientific method in weather and climate (i.e., meteorology), and show how weather and climate science is conducted
3. Describe and analyze the weather and climate of Alaska, compare it with weather and climate around the world, and identify how it is connected to the global patterns of weather and climate
4. Plan, conduct, evaluate, and explain, benchtop experiments, weather measurements, and weather observations made with their own instruments
5. Acquire, organize, analyze, evaluate, combine and use meteorological data from multiple sources
6. Create their own meteorological reports and present them to their peers
7. Compare their reports with reports from peers and evaluate the reports of peers

Lesson Objectives

1. Identify the geography and climate region of their local site using Google Maps
2. Compose and deliver a screencast presentation of their site and meteorological report.
3. Compare their meteorological report with the report of a peer

Assessment

Screencast 2:2. Once you have conducted your weather observations, it is time to create the screencast report as directed in the investigation manual. (Note: An  investigation manual if provided to students which describes how to take the first measurements of the weather using the instruments included in a  kit. Students will record observations using the attached worksheets. There are two appendices: Appendix 1 is an explanation of how to account for magnetic declination when making compass readings, and Appendix 2 is a chart of the Beaufort Scale. Tutorial videos on using the instruments can also be found in the Investigation Videos folder.

This brief video describes alignment and how it is achieved within the Quality Matters program of course review.

Further Resources

• CTL: Measurable Learning Objectives
• CTL: Quality Matters  
• CTL: Backwards Design
• CTL: Learning Taxonomies
• CTL: Assessments
• CTL: Assessment Mechanics
• Alignment: A Proven Method to Help Students Achieve Learning Goals
• Why should assessments, learning objectives, and instructional strategies be aligned?

Research Foundations

Ally, M. (2004). Foundations of educational theory for online learning. Theory and Practice of Online Learning, 2, 15—44.

Blumberg, P. (2009).  Maximizing learning through course alignment and experience with different types of knowledge. Innovative Higher Education (34)2, p. 93-103.

Fink, D. (2003)    A Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003

Jones, B. M., & Wehlburg, C. M. (2014). Learning Outcomes Assessment Misunderstood: Glass Half-Empty or Half-Full. Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, 15(2), 15-23.