E Komo Mai

Course Mapping for Alignment

Aloha and e komo mai!

This stand alone short course is intended to provide HPU instructors with a a solid understanding of how course and module learning objectives form the foundation of ANY course and are the basis for alignment between learning objectives, learning activities, and assessments. This course is appropriate for you if you are new to teaching online, if you are new to course mapping, or if you have mapped your course but want to check that learning objectives are measurable.

Using a course map can help to assure alignment within a course. Course mapping begins with crafting measurable learning objectives that clearly describe what learners should know and be able to do by the end of a course. Well crafted learning objectives are specific and observable enough that instructors are able to measure them. So, what does that mean? Let's look at a couple of examples.

Sample learning objective that is NOT measurable:

Students will understand appropriate tax strategies for different financial and personal scenarios.

This is not measurable because it is NOT observable. We cannot observe that a student understands. Understanding is an internal cognitive process. To revise this, we must choose a verb that is an observable action that students can perform that will show their understanding.

Revised measurable learning objective:

Students will select appropriate tax strategies for different financial and personal scenarios.

This is measurable because instructors can observe a student selecting the appropriate strategies in various ways—multiple choice question, fill in the blank, short answer, and essay questions.

Check Point

At this point, look at your current syllabus or a course map where you have outlined course objectives. Have you listed any outcomes that are NOT measurable? These can be easily identified by unobservable verbs or verb phrases such as the following: learn, understand, develop an understanding, know, realize.

These types of learning outcomes are almost impossible to measure. If you found some of these, or other unobservable verbs, that's alright. We are going to learn more about crafting measurable learning objectives in the following modules!

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

1. Create measurable course learning objectives.

2. Create measurable module/unit-level objectives aligned to course-level learning objectives.

3. Write learning objectives from the learner’s perspective.

4. Clearly distinguish between learning objectives and learning activities.

5. Identify upside-down alignment within a course.

As you progress throughout this course, think specifically about the essential behaviors or skills that students will need in order to show mastery of the content.