Having created the course's purpose and learning objectives, you have answered the fundamental question:

What do I want students to know and do at the end of the class?

With that question answered, you are now ready to answer these two questions:

What instructional activities will help students attain these objectives?

What tasks or performances will reveal whether students have attained these objectives?

A well designed course aligns assessments, learning objectives, and instructional strategies. In the words of Grant Wiggins (2005), "Greater coherence among desired results, key performances, and teaching and learning experiences leads to better student performance--the purpose of [course] design."

AlignTriangle

The second set of steps in the course proposal process involves designing the Major Methods of Assessment and Topical Outline as well as aligning Course Learning Outcomes with Program Learning Outcomes and College Competences.

Major Methods of Assessment

The purpose of classroom-level assessment is to ensure that instructors know whether students have met the intended course learning outcomes. Assessments should be designed to answer this question:

What performances or work products would we accept as evidence that students have attained the desired knowledge and skills?

Major Methods of Assessment

The Major Methods of Assessment section of the course proposal should describe (in general terms) the types of assessment activities (or better yet, their defining characteristics) that must be part of the course so that the instructor will know how well students are meeting the desired outcomes.

Assessments should be clearly and directly aligned with course outcomes. For instance, a research paper will not provide evidence of competence in oral communication, unless there is a requirement that it be presented. Likewise, a multiple-choice test will not provide evidence of student ability to incorporate outside research into their proposal for solving a particular problem.

A major assessment method is a required activity that allows the instructor to know that students have achieved the desired outcomes. Individual instructors might include additional assignments or elements in their grading system, but these would not be the “major” methods of assessment. Keep in mind that one purpose of the course proposal is to serve as a resource for anyone designing and teaching a course. Thus, the descriptions of major (required) methods of assessment in the course proposal should be clear to an instructional designer and to any instructor teaching this course. It should be clear that assessment activities of this type are necessary and should not be replaced with a different type of assessment activity because a substitution would alter the fundamental nature of the course.

What not to do in this section:

- - Submit a grading plan
  - Get too specific, e.g. a mid-term, a final, weekly quizzes, a research paper and three hourly exams. This would “box-in” an instructor who doesn’t want to use testing as the primary assessment tool. Other combinations or methods would very likely do just as well at assessing student learning.
  - Be so general that there is no visible connection to the student learning outcomes.
  - Repeat the student learning outcomes.

The Learning Assessment Director or the Director of Instructional Practice can help you with this section if you are unsure about how to devise major methods of assessment.

For more on designing major or signature assessments visit the Collecting Evidence page of the Champlain College Learning Outcomes Assessment Course.

Topical Outline

The principles of "backward design" (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005) stipulate a three-step process: (1) articulate the the course's desired results (learning outcomes), (2) determine acceptable evidence (performance) of students' attainment of learning, and (3) plan learning experiences and instruction designed to impart the desired skills and knowledge. Thus, course content ought to be directly aligned with learning outcomes and signature assessments.

Topical Outline

The Topical Outline section of the course proposal is a list of key topics that constitute the course and are required to ensure that the content aligns with learning outcomes for the course and the program.

Here are some questions (from Wiggins) to consider when designing the topical outline:

What enabling knowledge (facts, concepts and principles) and skills (applications, operations, performances) will students need to perform effectively and achieve desired results?

What activities will equip students with the needed knowledge and skills?

What will need to be taught and coached?

What materials and resources are best suited to accomplish these goals?

Is the overall design coherent and effective?

When designing the Topical Outline, it is important to keep in mind that it will be designed to impart both declarative knowledge and functional knowledge. "Declarative knowledge is usually second-hand knowledge; it is about what has been discovered." (Briggs) Declarative knowledge includes academic disciplinary knowledge as well as heuristics (pre-determined practical methods and algorithms). In the Champlain pedagogy, it is vital that students put declarative knowledge to work, allowing them to turn declarative into functioning knowledge. (That is why it is important to design major methods of assessment that require students to demonstrate their skills and knowledge and not merely tell us about it in exams and quizzes.) The objective is to switch from a teacher-centered (teachers transmit large amounts of information), to a learner-centered view (teachers set the conditions so that students construct knowledge through their own activities). (Biggs, 2014; Kember, 1998).

Program Learning Outcomes

Program Learning Outcomes represent the knowledge, skills and behaviors that students should be able to demonstrate upon completing a program. The process of aligning Course Learning Outcomes with PLOs (as well as College-level LOs) is known as curriculum mapping, which connects course-level goals with the program's and the College's graduate attributes.

Program Learning Outcomes

The Program Learning Outcomes section of the Curriculog course proposal you will select those PLOs that are advanced in the course.

The purpose of aligning each course with PLOs through the curriculum proposal process is to support curriculum mapping at the program level. Curriculum mapping is an analysis tool that allows Program Directors to validate the curriculum's coherence and comprehensiveness as well as to monitor its effectiveness.

NOTE: In Curriculog, when you hover over the Program Learning Outcome box and click, three action buttons will appear: Add New Item, Save All Changes, and Done Editing. To add a PLO, click on Add New Item. PLO1

A new window will appear that allows you to select approved PLOs from a menu. To find the PLOs scroll by division and by program. Click on those PLOs from the appropriate program that align with the Course Learning Outcomes. When finished, click Done.

PLO2

As much as possible, avoid using "Create New" in the PLO selection tool. You should not add new PLOs to the course proposal (even though that is an option) unless you are simultaneously working on a Program Modification Proposal in which the PLOs are being revised. If you do not see the PLOs for your program in the menu, contact a Curriculum Administrator or the Learning Assessment Director.

College Competencies

Each program is required to demonstrate how its curriculum advances student development of the ten College Competencies, and this is done through curriculum mapping.

For this reason, course proposals require the ranking of the College Competencies that are advanced by the course. The key to mapping the College Competencies is to use an intensity scale that indicates not the endpoint, but the degree to which the student is expected to advance by completing the course. Intensity is indicated on a zero-to-three scale, where "three" would indicate a potential program learning outcome assessment point.

CompetencyIntensityRubric

Roughly speaking, the ranking scale demonstrates the degree to which which students are expected to practice and receive feedback (or demonstrate mastery) in this course.

CollCompButtons

0 = course outcomes are not aligned with College competency

1 = course outcomes are aligned with the College competency but the competency may or may not be directly taught or assessed

2 = course outcomes are aligned with College competency, the competency is taught, and the competency is clearly articulated in a component of assessment

3 = course outcomes are aligned with College competency and the competency is directly taught and is a significant component of assessment OR the student has the opportunity to demonstrate mastery of the competency

College Competencies Ranking

In the College Competencies Ranking section of the Curriculog course proposal you will use radio buttons to rank those Competencies that are advanced in the course.

Next up: Resource Requirements

Course Capacity
Faculty Load (if different from the number of credits)
Library Information Requirements
Technology Requirements
Facility (Classroom) Requirements

Click "Next" to continue

References

John Biggs, Constructive Alignment in University Teaching, HERDSA Reveiw of Higher Education, Vol 1, July, 2014.

John Biggs, Aligning teaching for constructing learning, The Higher Education Academy, 2004?

Carnegie Mellon Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation: Why should assessments, learning objectives, and instructional strategies be aligned?

Kember, D. (1998). Teaching beliefs and their impact on students’ approach to learning. In B. Dart and G. Boulton-Lewis (Eds.) Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Camberwell, Victoria: Australian Council for Educational Research.

Vanderbilt Center for Teaching: Understanding by Design

Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, Chapter 1. What is Backward Design?, Understanding by Design, 2nd Edition, ASCD, Alexandria, VA, 2005.