Improving curriculum alignment and achieving learning goals by making the curriculum visible | Semantic Scholar (2024)

FAQs

How do you ensure curriculum alignment? ›

Instructional leaders can keep track of this curriculum alignment through daily walkthroughs with triangulation of curriculum, observations and feedback on alignment, common formative assessment data and other data tools, active participation in PLCs, supporting teachers in planning for instruction.

Curricular alignment is the process of aligning a program's curriculum with its goals. It is a part of a high-level backwards design approach to the design of an entire curriculum. In backwards design, one starts by defining the learning goals (in this case, the program level learning outcomes, or PLOs).

The teaching methods and the assessment are aligned to the learning activities designed to achieve the learning outcomes. Aligning the assessment with the learning outcomes means that students know how their achievements will be measured.

Aligning the intended, enacted, and learnt curricula is a multifaceted but invaluable process for achieving educational success. This alignment not only streamlines teaching and learning but also simplifies the process of evaluating educational outcomes.

1 Define your learning outcomes

The first step in curriculum alignment is to define your learning outcomes, which are the specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes that you want your students to achieve by the end of your course or program.

Horizontal alignment: When a curriculum is horizontally aligned, what students are learning in one ninth-grade biology course, for example, mirrors what other students are learning in a different ninth-grade Living Environment course.

Alignment is the process of ensuring that the specified curriculum is consistent with enabling students to reach the milestones outlined in the standards.

You can think of alignment as a kind of chain in which the materials, activities, and assessments in your course support the learning objectives of each module, and each module in turn supports the course-level objectives. The manner in which each part of your course supports the next is through alignment.

Examples of Constructive Alignment include designing assessment tasks aligned with the learning outcomes and using teaching and learning activities aligned with the assessment tasks.

Assessments should reveal how well students have learned what we want them to learn while instruction ensures that they learn it. For this to occur, assessments, learning objectives, and instructional strategies need to be closely aligned so that they reinforce one another.

How to implement a curriculum effectively? ›

Allows students to problem-solve effectively. Increases student engagement. Allows for multi-disciplinary learning to occur. Teaches diverse knowledge and skill.

If the assessments and learning outcomes are not aligned, learners may have difficulty determining the significance of the tasks they face in the course (Stavredes, 2011). Completing assignments and activities in an online course with no objective(s) makes student work appear less meaningful.

Goals are the broad, general statements that indicate desired long-term outcomes. Standardizing goals, such as with state standards or governing body standards, ensures that all students are prepared for their next stage of learning or life, regardless of teacher or school.

You should analyze the data to identify the strengths and gaps of your curriculum, as well as the needs and expectations of your students and stakeholders. You should also compare your curriculum with the relevant standards and benchmarks, and check for alignment and coherence.

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