Setting the Stage:
Constructive Alignment
“Scaffolding & Constructive Alignment” by Flickr user Gavan Watson
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Identifying Learners
Demographic information and personal attributes:
characteristics, skills, values, and interests, but also the context
of their daily lives.
 What characteristics might you use to describe them?
 What technologies are they comfortable using? Do your
learners use technology a great deal, or a little? Do your
learners use social networking tools to share their lives and
experiences with friends, family, and colleagues?
 Are your learners new to the study in which you want to
engage them? In other words, are they novices or are they
more sophisticated learners who are looking to either
reinforce or master the course materials?
Light, Tracy Penny; Chen, Helen L.; Ittelson, John C. (2011-1118). Documenting Learning with ePortfolios: A Guide for
College Instructors (Kindle Locations 1147-1156). Wiley. Kindle
Edition.
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Sample Learner Profile
Stacy is a second-year student majoring in accounting. She
has decided to take the History and Film course because it
is on the list of electives from which she can choose. She
likes to watch movies, and she thinks watching films for
credit will assure her an “easy A.” The last time she took
history was in high school and she did not really enjoy it—it
was a lot of information to remember and she hated
learning about wars and politics. She spends a lot of her
spare time keeping in touch with her friends via Facebook,
SMS (texting), and Snapchat although she does not really
consider herself to be very technologically savvy.
Light, Tracy Penny; Chen, Helen L.; Ittelson, John C. (2011-1118). Documenting Learning with ePortfolios: A Guide for
College Instructors (Kindle Locations 1147-1156). Wiley. Kindle
Edition.
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Folio Thinking
1. Develop a short learner profile for the students who will
take your class or participate in your program.
2. Identify parts of this profile that you think will impact the
instruction, activities, and assessment you’ll undertake.
3. What purpose will the portfolio serve for these learners?
Compile this material on the “Learning Outcomes” page of
your mini portfolio.
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Identifying Stakeholders (Audiences)
Institutional
stakeholders
Extra-institutional
stakeholders
 Students
 Alumni
 Faculty instructors
 Employers
 Administrators and other
senior leaders
 Mentors
 Technical and
administrative support staff
 Peers
 Family members
Light, Tracy Penny; Chen, Helen L.; Ittelson, John C. (2011-1118). Documenting Learning with ePortfolios: A Guide for
College Instructors (Kindle Locations 1147-1156). Wiley. Kindle
Edition.
5
Folio Thinking
1. Develop a list of key stakeholders (audiences) for your
portfolio project.
2. Identify key concerns for each stakeholder you identify.
Compile this information on the “Learning Outcomes” page
of your mini portfolio.
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Constructive Alignment:
Learning Outcomes
Learning
Outcomes
Teaching &
Learning
Activities
Assessment
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Outcomes Based Teaching and
Learning
“The logic is stunningly obvious: Say what
you want students to be able to do,
teach them to do it and then see if they
can, in fact, do it.”
Biggs, J. B., Tang, C. S., & Society for Research into Higher Education. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at
university. Maidenhead :McGraw-Hill: Open University Press.
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Outcomes Based Teaching and
Learning
 What type of learning experience you want students to have in your
particular course or program?
 How will the ePortfolio be used to allow students to make
connections to other instances of learning that they experience in
other contexts?
 When they enter your classroom, will students already be thinking
about how to connect the learning that happens in other contexts
(e.g., academic, workplace, or community) to the learning that
happens in your particular classroom? If so, how will that be
documented in the ePortfolio?
Light, Tracy Penny; Chen, Helen L.; Ittelson, John C. (2011-11-18). Documenting Learning with ePortfolios: A Guide for College Instructors (Kindle Locations 1068-1069). Wiley. Kindle
Edition.
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Goals, objectives, outcomes
Goals reflect the targets for a course or
program. Goals are where you want to
go, objectives are how you get there,
and outcomes are proof that you have
arrived.
“Goals, Objectives and Outcomes › Assessment Primer › Assessment › University of Connecticut.” N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Aug. 2014.
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“Goals, Objectives
and Outcomes ›
Assessment Primer ›
Assessment ›
University of
Connecticut.” N.p.,
n.d. Web. 9 Aug.
2014.
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Developing Learning Outcomes
Every learning outcome follows a stem, such as:
On successful completion of this course, students will be able
to:
After the stem, you write a list of your learning outcomes, each
of which begins with an active verb or phrase that tells
students what sort of public, observable activity will be
expected of them.
Finally, you have the object of that verb – a concept/idea,
skill, habit of thought, or value.
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Types of Learning Outcomes
Cognitive – Concepts, ideas, beliefs, and facts. Cognitive knowledge is
“knowing that” and “knowing about,” sometimes “knowing why.” It is
also called “declarative” or “propositional” knowledge.
Performative – Skills and abilities. These are things that people can do,
generally after practice over a period of time, and they’re not usually
the sorts of things people can do naturally. Performative knowledge is
“knowing how.” At the post‐secondary level, most performative
knowledge presupposes and operationalizes a base of cognitive
knowledge.
Affective – Values, attitudes and emotions. When we’re talking about
how we feel about something, our disposition toward it, or about values
and principles we use to guide our behavior, then we’re dealing with
the affective domain.
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What kind of outcome?
On successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
Research and write an article using a form of research
methodology employed by compositionists that meets professional
standards of style and format.
This is a performative outcome. Here the focus is on students’
demonstration that they can actually research and write using a
standard methodology.
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What kind of outcome?
On successful completion of this course, students will be able
to:
Explain the steps involved in at least two forms of research
methodology employed by compositionists.
This is a cognitive learning outcome, because it focuses the
students’ attention on demonstrating their knowledge of the
steps involved in composition research. Note that it doesn’t
require them to demonstrate that they can actually do that
research themselves.
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What kind of outcome?
On successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
Defend at least two forms of research methodology employed by
compositionists with an appeal to the underlying scholarly values
and attitudes of composition scholars that they embody.
This is an affective and performative outcome. The performative
component is a skill (defense, which is a form, of argumentation),
but they need to demonstrate that skill by appealing to the
attitudes and values embodied in historical research. Clearly, in
addition to combining the performative and affective domains,
this outcome has two objects as well.
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Unobservable!
 Understand
 Be aware of
 Appreciate
 Be conscious of
 Comprehend
 Learn
 Grasp
 Perceive
 Know
 Value
 See
 Get
 Accept
 Apprehend
 Have a knowledge of
 Be familiar with
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Revised
Taxonomy
forBloom
Cognitive
The
stages of
Dimension
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Creating – the student creates a new product or point of view
assemble, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, write
Evaluating – the student justifies a stand or decision
appraise, argue, defend, judge, select, support, value,
evaluate
Analyzing – the student distinguishes between the different parts
compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish,
examine, experiment, question, test.
Applying – the student uses the information in a new way
choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret,
operate, schedule, sketch, solve, use.
Understanding – the student explains ideas or concepts
classify, describe, discuss, explain, identify, locate, recognize, report,
select, translate, paraphrase.
Remembering – the student recalls or remembers the information
define, duplicate, list, memorize, recall, repeat, reproduce state
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Curriculum Mapping
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Folio Thinking
1.
What should your students know, understand, or be able to
do at the end of your course/program? Make a list that
includes two or more goals for your course or program.
(Goals)
2.
Develop at least two learning outcomes that will enable
your students to know that they have achieved your goals
for the course. Compose these outcomes so that one of
them characterizes activity from the lower three levels of
Bloom’s taxonomy. Compose the other so that it
characterizes activity from the upper three levels.
(Outcomes)
Compile this information on the “Learning Outcomes” page of
your mini portfolio.
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