Transparency in Course Alignment

 

Now that your course is on its way to being aligned, let's look at some ways you can make sure alignment is presented clearly to your students. As mentioned earlier in this module, being transparent with you alignment can help provide your students with greater motivation. While the alignment may already be clear to you, here are some examples of how you can make this more obvious to your students. 

 

#1 Stating Module Goals

Here's an example from a weekly overview that the instructor uses before every module. She describes what the module's topic is (not shown), gives the students their goals for the week, as well as indicating how module goals align with course learning objectives. Included in this weekly overview is the list of the week or module's assignments.

#2 Cite objectives being met in assignment instructions 

Another way of clearly presenting alignment is to reinforce the course objectives in the assignment instructions themselves. This is an example from an introduction of a presentation that connects the learning activity with the module level objectives.

 

 

#3 Informational graphics

Here is a concept map demonstrating how the assessments in this module relate to the course learning outcomes and course description. This graphic was provided in the start page for the module. 

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Whatever methods you choose, being intentional about not only aligning your course, but being blatantly obvious and transparent about that alignment to your students will help shape the way they perceive and interact with course materials and activities. Adult learners especially will consistently buy in more when they understand the personal benefit to the work they are doing.  

 

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