Constructive alignment
A student finds it confusing that though they studied literature from multiple perspectives in class and they feel like they should study it for the assessment, this is not referred to in the course’s learning objectives. This causes them to be confused and frustrated as to what is expected from them.
When outlining the learning objectives for your course, it is essential to make sure that the content taught, the instructional strategies used, and the assessments administered, are aligned to be conducive to student learning. Often, diversity and inclusion aspects are included in the learning objectives but will not be a part of the assessment of the course. Or inversely, changes are made in the content taught (e.g., literature offering diverse perspectives) but are not reflected in the learning objectives. Having all elements aligned within your course can be referred to as constructive alignment Biggs, J. (2014). Constructive alignment in university teaching. HERDSA Review of Higher Education, 1, 5-22. .
Tools
Aligning your course
A good exercise to make sure that all components of your classroom curriculum and teaching are aligned is to revisit the design of your course backwards. This means that after you have articulated all your learning objectives, you need to check, one at a time, if the learning objectives are represented in the course content, if the instructional strategies used are beneficial to the learning objective, and if the assessment used captures the learning objective outlined. Find the constructive alignment table below for a guide on how this can be done for courses .
| Learning Objectives | Content | Instructional Strategies | Assessment |
| Define and describe the various issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in their respective disciplines | Lectures Weeks 1 & 2 topic A and B Literature | Debate/classroom discussion Not relevant | Essay question 1 of mid-term assessment |
| Critically examine their own attitudes about diverse and/or underrepresented groups | |||
