“Alignment is the key,” said one of the facilitators of an in-service training for English teachers I attended two years ago. She was referring to curriculum alignment, which is the connection of three essential elements: outcomes, instruction, and assessment.
In a research paper on constructive alignment, John Biggs noted that it is “an outcomes-based approach to teaching in which the learning outcomes that students are intended to achieve are defined before teaching takes place. Teaching and assessment methods are then designed to achieve those outcomes best and to assess the standard at which they have been achieved.”
Constructive alignment can be broken down into units and applied to a course as follows:
- Determine the intended learning outcomes (ILO) using measurable action verbs in Bloom’s taxonomy—or the ones used by the school to which a teacher belongs. These outcomes may be provided by the government, organization, or institution. They may also be created by the teacher.
- Design learning activities that allow the students to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to produce the ILOs. Provide additional instructions, resources, and references to aid in the students’ mastery of the skills and knowledge.
- Using the same action words as the ILOs, develop assessment tasks that allow students to demonstrate learning based on identified rubrics/criteria of performance.
The 2023 Curriculum Alignment Handbook of the University of Central Florida provides four types of alignment: internal, inter-institutional, horizontal, and vertical.
- Internal alignment occurs in an institution when students are exposed to the same content and faculty members teach toward the same learning outcomes.
- Inter-institutional alignment ensures “course alignment among and between various institutions’ common courses.”
- Horizontal alignment encompasses internal and inter-institutional alignment since it “involves alignment of courses that are considered the same across multiple offerings (multiple sections) of a single institution or across multiple institutions.”
- Vertical alignment occurs when “learners’ experience of knowledge and new skills occur incrementally and in a way that enhances and literally ‘builds-upon’ preceding learning encounters.”
Connecting the dots—outcomes, instruction, and assessment—in curriculum is essential to create a rich learning experience for students. This alignment helps them build on previous knowledge and skills while guided by a measurable and attainable outcome, ultimately allowing them to learn and accomplish goals based on those guidelines. For teachers, this process builds collaboration and support. It encourages discussion and open communication as courses are streamlined and alignment is sought across subjects, sections, and grade levels.
A final aspect I appreciated about the in-service training was the incorporation of the learning institution’s identity in the curriculum. For Adventist institutions, the “upward alignment” exists beyond the numerous curriculum alignments. Ellen White counsels in Fundamentals of Christian Education that “the most essential education for our youth today to gain, and that which will fit them for the higher grades of the school above, is an education that will teach them how to reveal the will of God to the world.”
Author
Robert Buseley Jr
Buseley Jr. graduated with a Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in English degree at the Adventist University of the Philippines, where he is currently taking his master's studies in the same field. He was a former English teacher at an Adventist academy in the northern part of the Philippines.