tisdag 15 november 2016

Watching Constructive Alignment

Watching Constructive Alignment

I'm watching the Constructive Alignment video by Carolyn Hoessler.

Constructive Alignments
The video starts by citing Parker J. Plamer "Our assumption that students are brain-dead leads to pedagogies that deaden their brains".  I think that is an awesome quote that reflects my impression on many dialogues with colleagues where we teachers complain over that the students lack interest in our subject. Maybe the lack of interest comes from our lack of belief in them?

Next is that John Biggs (2012) "talks about three levels of teaching" where we as teacher shift our focus when we grow as teachers. We start by focusing on good and bad students onto what we do as teachers and finally to what the student does. This shift is really good since it no longer focuses on the teacher but on how to allow students to be more active. In order to make that shift we need to be interested in who they are and what they bring to the course.
Constructive Alignment

The constructive alignment is about making sure that the learning outcomes as stated in the curriculum are aligned with teaching and learning activities as well as how we assess that students have learned.

I had a hard time following the examples she gave on alignment and misalignment...

The following I asked my group on +

I have a hard time understanding the short examples in the end of the video that are examples of when the Learning outcomes are aligned with the teaching and assessment. I think my lack of understanding comes from me being in a different area and that Carolyn goes through them very quick. Does anyone have a little bit more detailed example of alignment and misalignment that you care to share with me?

Here is an example from my own course, but I'm sort of having a hard time seeing if it is properly aligned or not.
The curriculum objective is that "the students should by themselves and in group be able to plan, document and conduct testing of a software system."
The teaching and learning activies are: "Students read and study examples of test plans, best practices for test plans, and I discuss those in lectures."
The assessment : "1. The students write a test plan document and conduct testing in a group(also a learning activity). 2. Individually peer review test plan document given by other groups according to the best-practices(also a learning activity). The test-plan artifact are graded and the peer reviews are graded.



2 kommentarer:

  1. This is interesting, Daniel, and I think you have captured alignment very well in your example. You are right in that the examples in the video are treated in a very succinct and brief fashion. I tend to think of it in terms of validity; is the measure actually assessing what it purports to assess - that is, the learning that has occurred during the teaching period. If there is alignment, then what is taught, how it is taught and how evidence of learning is measured should all centre around the same thing. Interestingly, our dependence on traditional exams (very low Bloom's Taxonomy remember, apply) and on standard assignment types is what probably contributes to misalignment; how can two limited types of assessment capture the learning across so many different areas? Whereas creating real life artifacts such as in your example is much more likely to be aligned, as it has been generated with the student learning in mind. Just my thoughts!

    SvaraRadera
  2. Thank you Daniel for sharing your example, it was very interesting to read. I also think that alignment is hard to achive. Is the example a task that is done online, if so, I wonder about the e-activities that they are doing, these should mirror the objectives. Also I was thinking that a reflection on your own learning process would be something that the students could do in relation to the task. Just an idea.Thanks,
    Ann-Helen

    SvaraRadera