A well-designed course connects what students should learn, how they show their learning, and the activities and materials that help them get there. Backward design and alignment tools can help you plan a new course or revise an existing one.
Backward Design
Backward design, developed by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, starts with the end in mind. You begin with your learning outcomes and work backward to plan assessments and learning activities.
- Identify learning outcomes. Decide what students should be able to do by the end of the course. See Writing Learning Outcomes with Bloom’s Taxonomy.
- Plan assessments. Decide what evidence will show that students have met each outcome. Ask yourself, “What will it look like when students get it?” For assessments that reflect real-world work, see Designing Real-World Learning.
- Plan activities and materials. Choose the teaching strategies, activities, and materials that will help students succeed on those assessments. See Active Learning Techniques.
Formative and Summative Assessment
Use both types of assessment to support learning and to measure it.
- Formative assessment happens throughout the course. It gives students feedback and practice, and it shows you which concepts need more review. Examples include quizzes, exit tickets, reflective writing, and homework.
- Summative assessment happens at the end of a unit or course. It measures overall achievement and is often used for grading. Examples include exams, final projects, and presentations.
Grades and assessment are not always the same. A student might lose points for a late submission and still show they met the outcome, or pass an assignment without fully meeting it. For more, see Assessment, Grading, and Rubrics.
Assessment and AI
As you plan assessments, consider what generative AI can and cannot do for students. Assessments that show students’ own thinking include in-class work, drafts and revisions that show the process, oral explanations, and tasks tied to your specific course content or real situations. Decide where AI could support learning in your course, and make your expectations clear for each assignment. See Teaching in the Age of AI.
The Alignment Matrix
An alignment matrix is a table that checks whether each learning outcome is supported by your assessments, activities, and materials. List one outcome per row, then fill in four columns:
- Course-level learning outcome
- Assessments: formative and summative
- Teaching and learning activities
- Content, materials, and resources
If an outcome has no assessment, or an assessment doesn’t connect to any outcome, the matrix makes the gap easy to see.
Example
For one course outcome, an aligned plan might include:
- Assessments: clicker questions, quizzes, reflective writing, homework, and exit tickets (formative); an exam and a project or presentation (summative)
- Activities: think-pair-share, concept mapping, jigsaw, one-minute paper, peer review, and case studies
- Materials: textbook chapters, open educational resources, slides, journal articles, videos, guest speakers, and lectures
Curriculum Mapping
A curriculum map aligns a program’s courses with its program-level learning outcomes. It shows what is taught and when, reveals gaps in the curriculum, and helps you plan program assessment. It also improves communication among faculty and program coherence, and it makes it more likely that students reach program outcomes.
How a Curriculum Map Works
A curriculum map is a table with one row for each required course or experience and one column for each program learning outcome. Each cell shows how the course addresses the outcome:
- I: introduced
- R: reinforced, with opportunities to practice
- M: mastery at the senior or exit level
- A: assessment evidence collected
For example, part of a curriculum map for a hypothetical program might look like this:
| Course or experience | Outcome 1: Analyze a problem using discipline methods | Outcome 2: Communicate findings in writing | Outcome 3: Apply ethical principles to professional decisions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 101 Introductory course | I | I | |
| 201 Methods course | R | R | I |
| 301 Advanced course | R | M, A | R |
| 401 Capstone | M, A | M | M, A |
How to Create a Curriculum Map
- Gather the program’s learning outcomes, required and recommended courses, and other required experiences, such as internships, research, or co-ops.
- Create a table with courses and experiences on one side and outcomes on the other.
- Mark the courses and experiences that currently address each outcome.
- Enter I, R, M, or A to show the level for each outcome in each course.
- Review the map as a faculty group. Revise it so each outcome is introduced, reinforced, and mastered, and has at least one A for program assessment.
Best Practices
- Give students time to practice: introduce an outcome early, then reinforce it before you assess mastery.
- Use the map to identify the assignments and activities that produce each program outcome.
- Let faculty teach to their strengths. Not every course needs to cover every outcome.
- Focus on the outcomes your program values most, and address them in multiple courses.
- Share the map with students and faculty, and help students see how each course builds on earlier ones.
Want help designing or aligning your course? Schedule a course design and teaching consultation.
Sources
Jacobs, H. H. (1997). Mapping the big picture: Integrating curriculum and assessment K-12. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Scriven, M. (1967). The methodology of evaluation. In R. W. Tyler, R. M. Gagné, & M. Scriven, Perspectives of curriculum evaluation (AERA Monograph Series on Curriculum Evaluation, No. 1). Rand McNally.
Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (Expanded 2nd ed.). Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Have a question? Contact CEITL by phone, email, or in person in Bond Hall, Room 363.