Educational design

This article explains the basic principles of designing education: How to formulate achievable objectives, find teaching and learning activities that help students achieve these objectives, and design assessment to check if your students have indeed achieved the learning objectives that you (and your colleagues) have set for them. In short, this article explains the “constructive alignment” principle.

Constructive alignment

What is it?

The constructive alignment principle from Biggs and Tang (2011) * states that you need to set realistic and achievable objectives for your students. To help students reach these objectives, you need to design teaching and learning activities that are in line with the learning objectives. Along the way you need to make sure that students are reaching the learning objectives by assessing them with assessment formats that target the learning objectives. Your course is aligned if your learning objectives, teaching and learning activities, and feedback and assessment methods, are all on the same level and about the same content.

Constructive alignment pyramid — Constructive alignment (Biggs & Tang, 2011)

* Biggs, J., & Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university. McGraw-hill education (UK).

How to use it?

Being explicit in what you expect students to be able to do with the skills and knowledge that are discussed in a course, helps students to focus their attention to relevant aspects of the course and lessons. It also helps you identify the most important elements of your course or lesson.

Some suggestions for implementing constructive alignment in your course:

Before you start, (re)define clear and measurable learning objectives. What should your students know and what should they be able to do after your lesson and/or course? You can use the Learning Objective Generator to help you (re)formulate the objectives.
Think about how academic development within your program, containing skills, attitudes, and personal development goals, are represented and practiced. Although these academic objectives might not always be explicitly trained, they are part of the graduate attributes of a study program.
Keep your learning objectives in mind when you decide what type of assessment you want to use, because some kinds of learning objectives are a better fit for certain forms of testing than other kinds.
Before you start planning and preparing, consider which activities students should do to reach the objectives that are set. Make sure to offer variety and complexity, ensuring the academic rigor Leiden University is known for.
Make room in your course and/or lesson to discuss the learning objectives. By clearly connecting your lessons to the intended objectives students are made aware of what they can expect to learn and what they will be assessed on. If students are aware they are working on reaching the learning objectives, it helps them to focus better during lessons.

For more information about constructive alignment, you can watch this video on YouTube by RISBO (EUR).

Learning objectives

Imagine that after a lesson you ask your students what they remember. What would you like them to say? If you can pin down three or four main topics, then you have made a good start in formulating your learning objectives.

Learning objectives are the goals that you set for your students: What content do they need to cover and on what level should they master this content?

How to (re)formulate learning objectives?

Analyse the context of your course or lesson. What content and skills should your students have acquired prior to your course or lesson? What content and skills are students expected to have acquired in your education when they go to the next course or lesson?
Use the cognitive levels of Bloom’s taxonomy to determine the level of your objectives (see the image below). By using the levels and verbs from Bloom’s taxonomy, you can create learning objectives that correspond to a cognitive level that you want to reach with your students. It also helps you determine what teaching activities and assessment methods align with the level of your objectives.
Write the learning objectives as achievable goals for students. If you formulate learning objectives with active verbs and from a student perspective, students can track their own progress (e.g. “After this course, you are able to explain the constructive alignment principle”).
Avoid vague and broad objectives. Consider this learning objective: “After this course, you have insight in the theory of educational design”. How would you check if you have reached this objective? Vague verbs like “understanding” and “having insight” can be interpreted in many ways and are therefore best specified in more measurable verbs like “illustrating” and “outlining”.
Use the Learning Objective Generator to help you (re)formulate the objectives.

The cognitive levels of Bloom’s taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002)

Teaching and learning activities

When you have clear and measurable learning objectives, students need to be able to reach them. Teaching and learning activities help them do that. These are the parts that make up your course and/or your lesson. Think of ways that the students can achieve the objectives on their own and what additional things they need from you. For example, if you want your students to be able to apply something, then it would make sense if your students learn how to apply that something during the course or lesson. For more information, please read this page.

Feedback and assessment methods

Where teaching and learning activities are an informal way of helping students reach the objectives, feedback and assessment methods are a formal way of keeping track of the students’ progress and finally determining if they have passed or not. Students learn more from assessment when they receive feedback and have an opportunity to use that feedback to improve (Gibbs, 2010). Intermediate assessment where students receive feedback is also called ‘formative assessment’ or ‘assessment for learning’. When assessment is used to determine if the student has passed or not (usually with a grade) this is called ‘summative assessment’ or ‘assessment of learning’. It’s recommended to have a combination of both types of assessment in your course design. For more information about digital assessments, please read this page.

FAQ

How can I stimulate collaboration and interactivity in class or online?

Take a look at this interactive overview of teaching activities that you can apply in your teaching.

Where can I find more information about digital assessment?

The most up-to-date information on how to organize digital assessment is currently published on the staff website.

Who can I contact for detailed or personalised didactical advice?

Please send us an email on hello@llinc.leidenuniv.nl

see all FAQ

Course preparation

The ‘Roadmap to Flexible Education’ is a convenient and interactive text to consult in preparation for (online) education. The roadmap covers three phases of course design:…

Read more
Find your teaching activity

To stimulate interactivity and collaboration in class, we have created an overview of teaching activities that you can apply in your teaching.

Read more
Assessment

Keeping track of students’ progress is crucial to enable students to reach the desired learning outcomes of your course. When you (re)design a course, it is important to decide…

Read more