Course Clutter: How Alignment Can Improve Instruction

Alex 0:00

How do you set up your course? Well, to measure data and effectiveness on the back end.

Alex 0:07

Welcome to the Pedagogy Toolkit. In this episode, we discuss the concept of alignment. And how setting up measurable course objectives, assessments, and materials will help you build a class that is clear and concise. Stick around.

Camie 0:38

One of the things I really love to do in, but it's like my stress relief and I have no idea why it's weird. Stress relief is watching cleaning and organizational videos on social media.

Alex 0:53

Okay? Is it something to say psychologically about your home life there? That everything's so disorganized, I need to find an outlet to see organization in action.

Camie 1:05

Actually, it's the sound of it, even more than the watching.

Alex 1:07

Right.

Camie 1:11

It's ASMR, I've got an addiction. I think I love, like right before I turn on the Golden Girls to go to sleep. I’ve conditioned myself to…

Alex 1:23

You need to hear Betty White's voice.

Camie 1:25

I am a Golden Girls superfan. That's something else you probably don't know about me. I really love them every night, pretty much. That is what I go to sleep too. But right before that I have to have some ASMR videos.

Alex 1:36

What is it about these cleaning or cooking hack videos that like appeal to you so much

Camie 1:41

Right outside of the ASMR, I actually really love that I've learned things from them. Things that I did not learn growing up when I was learning how to clean or organize. You just see things from a different perspective sometimes. And you get these plans as a lot of people will share their schedules and life is so busy right now helps me to be able to save any time or to be able to use a process that will shorten or make more efficient what I'm doing. Or to know that I've not missed any areas in my cleaning. Because a lot of times there are places that can be neglected. If you don't plan ahead and think about them.

Alex 2:19

That's true. Yeah. It's easy just to skim over the top and get the easily seen stuff. But then there are certain things that are unseen or unaware that if you're not intentionally planning for it or intentionally building it into your routine, you're going to miss.

Camie 2:31

Yeah. It makes sense. Areas that you may not even think you can clean. Like I did not know that you can remove your toilet seat until I started watching these. That just makes my toilet so much cleaner. I know that's think about a lot

Alex 2:47

You didn't plan when you were tuning in today. There's that. Take a little nugget.

Camie 2:53

Yes. But here it is, it's really helpful also, there are all these people who do folding hacks. It really does help and save clothes just to have them there, you can easily see them. They take up less space. It just helps you when you're getting dressed. Here it is, It's all there. I have everything that I need. I can see at a glance what's there. It’s great.

Alex 3:14

So you're saying if your objective at the end is to have efficiency and cleanliness, there's steps that you can take prior to that in the process that align end goal by building those in previously ahead of time, you've streamline that whole process and it'll makes sense and it flows. Your life is much more congruent with the goal that you're trying to achieve.

Camie 3:36

Well, that's exactly it. That's actually the first rule of these organizational and cleaning hacks is to take stock of how are you living, how are you using this item that then says, where does it live? That way you have that efficiency. You know what you're dealing with, and you're not having those gaps where you forgot your grocery list or you forgot what you had a house and so you bought three yogurts because you've got your pantry inventory, right? It does. It makes things more streamlined so that you don't end up with too much of one thing, not enough of another. You can easily see things and it actually does make your life a little easier. It doesn't seem like it because it seems like a lot more planning, A lot more time that you have to put in on the front end, front loading, what you're doing. But then you take so much smother.

Alex 4:29

It's amazing that you're bringing this up. Can be because this has complete connections to a concept in course design and course management, for online instruction. What do you know?

Camie 4:39

That is crazy.

Alex 4:42

Yeah, there's a principle called alignment that is basically meaning consistency and coherence between components of an online course. I think that matches up exactly what you're talking about with the idea of these cleaning hacks, cooking hacks. You have consistency and coherence amongst every single step along the way. Things are a lot easier end product. The end product in your example being a clean home or an efficient chore or to do list. Accomplished. When we're talking a world of online instruction, you want to have a course by the end of the day that has clear objectives, both for the specific course then also for the entire program down from the program to the course of the individual lessons. And make sure that those assessments, those quizzes, those projects, all match up to what is being talked about from the 30,000 foot level. And then ensure that the materials you're using, the activities you're using, and the tools you're using all line up and match. That's the concept of alignment. It's this process of ensuring that all aspects of the learning experience are working together to achieve the same goal. Mention all those different resources, we actually have a resource that we use here at Global Campus Quality Matters. Do you mind talking about that for a little bit?

Camie 5:46

Quality Matters has built a rubric. They are not a rubric, they have built a rubric. They are a company who really focus on both alignment and accessibility in online learning. The alignment part of it, they talk about setting your objectives. Basically, what should students know and be able to do when they leave your course. Next they talk about a aligning your course objectives with your assessments. If you set a goal but you never measure that goal, do you know that you've met it? You have to be able to track progress along the way, which is how we get into our activities. You might need resources to support those activities. And the goal along the way, you have the course objectives and then you have assessments that match those. And then your course materials like readings and videos, lectures and your assignments to help students practice before they're assessed and deciding whether or not they've met. These course goals are all there in the course. They all match. You've got all the resources you need to support these goals for students. Students are then able to flow more easily through that learning process because they have the supports they need in place And because what you're asking them to do ultimately with the assessment is supported throughout with practice and readings and activities that support meeting that goal.

Alex 7:18

Yeah, I think the reason this type of concept or principle needs to be spoken out loud and articulated very clearly, especially when it comes to instruction in general, but even more specifically online instruction. When you're teaching at the higher ed level, ninth through 12th grade level, there comes to a certain point where maybe you have hit a level of subject matter expertise where a lot of things in your own mind go without being said. You have a certain base level of knowledge where you can presume certain competencies or certain abilities of the learners without ensuring that they actually are able to meet those competencies or objectives. On the front end, by creating alignment with objectives, assessments, activities, materials, very clearly, you're able to ensure that those students have the experience of knowing what is the base level of knowledge that I know. What is the base ability for me to comprehend what's being discussed.

Camie 8:10

Right. And that's why we rely on things like the QM Rubric because it walks us through that process and shows us where maybe our gaps are. We're only giving students lectures or even videos, but we're not giving them an opportunity to practice the skill that we're measuring them with. Then we're missing a component.

Alex 8:32

the higher ed space, be those: 3000

Camie 9:20

ally the course levels, those: 3000

Alex 9:42

Besides just regurgitated on an exam.

Camie 9:45

Right. Because we're at a point in our education when you get to higher ed, that you should have the skill to be able to do something, right? Sometimes, yes, that skill does need to be reiterated in the classroom to ensure that students know what format, what form, how you are approaching that skill as an instructor. But these are things that students should be able to do. The higher-level thinking, we are in higher ed, right? We should all be higher level thinking regardless of what course level we're at.

Alex: 10:19

And some of the immediate pushback you might have as you're listening to this or that others might have as they consider this idea is just time as one of them. I already rushed for time as an instructor to build my curriculum, to build my courses, to teach how I'm teaching. Now. Yes, we're going to fully acknowledge that alignment is a time-consuming process. It's going to require things like a rubric. It doesn't have to be the quality matters rubric. There are course maps we can talk about that will help you map out the alignment and make sure that all of your assessments and materials are meeting your objectives. That is going to require some additional intentionality. Also. Cultural barriers. It's not a normal experience to get into the science of aligning a course. An instructor's role is to set students up for success with the content. If we're just providing the content without any clear guidance or clear map, we're putting people out into the water without life preservers and expecting them to swim for hours and hours and hours. And that's…Yeah. Alignment’s worth it. Despite those challenges.

Camie: 11:30

Yes. Alignment is definitely worth it. It is work on the front end. You do have to take time to organize and think through what you're teaching for an entire semester, which is a big deal. It takes time to do that. It takes time to gather your resources. It takes time to organize activities in a way that is meaningful to students and think through what those are. But it also saves you a lot of time as an instructor because you have fewer of the students who are coming to you with these questions and emails and everything else that you're getting. You're still going to have questions, which is good. But when you have this type of alignment, questions can even be more focused from students. I've noticed that a lot of times they're more on track with what you're actually trying to teach them.

Alex: 12:21

Think of like an archery analogy. There's a wide-open field and you haven't pointed in the direction where the target is just going to and you're saying “go”, students are just going to fire arrows in random directions and they're probably not going to hit the target. But if you can point them in the direction that lines them up with the target, that doesn't mean that you're just making them hit the target automatically, but you're putting them in a position to be successful. You can't just say, here's all the resources, I'm laying everything at your feet. I mean you can, but that's not quality instruction, that's not quality teaching. Here's the thing too that I think I've experienced some pushback from time to time with teachers throughout the years. And it's like, well, that's how I had to learn. Therefore, the next generation… I'm not going to adjust that if I had to go through it this way. This is how it just is. It's like, well, that's not innovative or useful in any other field, why would we do it in education?

Camie: 13:16

But also, things have actually changed a lot even since I was in school. I say even like I'm not old, things have changed a lot even from a decade ago in terms of the amount of content and how people consume that information. There's just information everywhere, all the time. Focusing students in on what information matters, how should we prioritize it for this discipline in this course. That's a skill and students need it more and more all the time because of the amount of information that's out there. And we know that we have mis and disinformation in with the actual information.

Alex: 14:12

Absolutely. We have language learning models like you, James and Amalie talked about recently that are going steer people in a certain direction. They sound confident but they're not always accurate. Alignment helps achieve the decrease of information overload. When you can target that extraneous time spent on activities that aren't going to contribute to your outcomes, you're going to create a more successful learning environment like you're saying. Yeah, students are just going to know what to talk about. They may come across something like, this has no bearing on what we're actually talking about. I can let that sit off to the side, whereas other questions might come up or other thoughts might come up that actually are pointed at the target of the objective or the outcome, and you can then focus on that instead. How would someone achieve this?

Camie: 14:47

You mentioned backward design earlier. It is actually one of the best ways because of course it's a resource, but it's not a rubric exactly. It just gives you steps. That's one of the things I like about it is step one is like that, begin with the end in mind thing. What is the end result that you want?

Alex: 15:08

Yeah. Can you define it a little bit more clearly? Maybe for those who are maybe listening and unfamiliar with backward design.

Camie: 15:14

It's starting with your desired outcomes. What do you want students to know and be able to do at the end of your course? And then you walk backwards and design backwards based on that. You start with your, your objectives, the goals, how, what you want students to be able to know and do. Then you design those assessments. Then you design your activities. Then you fill in with the resources that support those activities. Readings, lectures, videos, any of that.

Alex: 15:49

Because I can think to my limited experiences in teaching and instructing. And often I'm grabbing really cool resources on the front end. But I want to talk about this or I want to bring this in. Great, that maybe is really a fun subject to talk about. If my goal during this particular lesson or this particular period is to talk about subject B, and this resource relates to subject A, maybe that's going to be reserved for a different Lesson or a different time frame. To get them into that discussion, I need to find resources actually that fit subject B where I'm at in the course.

Camie: 16:24

Yeah, it's like I was talking about those cleaning hacks earlier. A lot of them will use, like, specific tools that you just look at and you think, oh, they're so cool. Then you get that specific tool and then it sits around your house because that's not actually part of your plan and part of what you need it for.

Alex: 16:43

I don't even own a cast iron skillet. Why did I get this thing that cleans cast iron skillets? It looked really cool on the video, right?

Camie: 16:51

You can see these really cool resources that you want to implement, or even really cool strategies like gamification that you want to implement your courses. But how is it helping students meet that goal? That's always the question you want to ask.

Alex: 17:05

Absolutely, a learning outcomes map will probably be another resource that will really help complement something like backward design. And we'll link an example in the show notes of what this could look like. Again, there's dozens of resources out there that can supplement and help teachers and instructors in this. But it's essentially a document that will help you identify outcomes. Or it could be down to units or lessons with individual objectives for each course. What you really want from the basis of educational theory is you want to have individual lessons. Individual objectives within lessons meet certain goals that help filter up to the course, then the course, those course level objectives ultimately fitting up to the program. The program objectives ultimately affecting the certain outcomes that you want. By the end of this degree or the end of this certificate or license, whatever it might be, the learner is now capable of doing XY and Z. It's often, we don't approach an individual class or an individual lesson with that meta analysis or that meta landscape understanding. But that's really what I was going back to the very beginning talking about like data collection and how can we know if individual lessons or our individual courses that we teach are actually meeting the goals that we want for our learners to have. If we're not aligning courses to meet certain objectives that actually filter up to an end outcome. This is where an outcome map, which again, it can really just be a columnized document that helps you see step by step like we're talking about the materials, the activities, the assessments, all fitting with the objectives. It's hard to do, like we've mentioned already. It takes time. It is a continuous process. It's one of those. It's a journey, not a destination. Because there's always going to be ways that you're going to iterate or ideate, that are going to change your activities and your lessons. Again, most people are working in fields that have dynamic theory and have changing landscape of material and lessons and experiences.

Camie: 18:57

Well, and you get student feedback number 1, as you go through the course and things like that, you definitely want to change based on student feedback. But also student demographics may change over time as well. You have to consider who are your students, who are the learners that are experiencing this, and how will they perceive what you've planned? It's something else that you need to think about as you plan through this alignment and making sure that you've got your checklist. You were thinking about that meta view of how does this feed into these larger goals that we have beyond just this really cool piece of information that we think people should know in our course or in this lesson. How do we set these students up for success within this field? It goes beyond, we want them to know this information, or we want them to be an informed citizen, which we do, we want to consider as part of our plan. But it really is about taking that 30,000 foot view overall and looking at how does this fit in the big picture of the department of the students’ lives and futures, and what are we ultimately doing with our time here.

Alex: 20:16

Yeah, probably the most relevant example of that right now, broken record here, but is going to be AI in learning, but also in how students are going to approach their degree plans moving forward. And what that looks like then in the workforce. If you are an instructor and you're getting ready to teach for the fall and you have not begun to understand, how can you align the use of generative AI or these language learning models like Chat GPT, like Google Bard. You're going to be behind already because students are already using them. And not just they're going to write their essays for them, that's probably the simplest and most reductive way to look at these things. They're going change how students ideate. They're going to change how students interact online, but then also how they interact with the job tasks and the duties that they have on a regular basis. And figuring out how to align the use of this new technology into your objectives, rather than just putting a blanket statement of use this or don't use this is going to take time. It's going to take intentionality. But by doing so with that very tangible thing like you're talking about generations ago, alignment would have looked very different. But it's going to matter and it's going to affect learning, but it's also just affecting general culture. And that's something that if we're going to be good designers and good instructors have to constantly be innovating in that as the culture and the technology innovates around you.

Camie: 21:33

This specifically, that's a great example because we don't fully know how AI is going to change society or the workforce. We do know that it will change society and the workforce. Right now we look at what skills do students need to be able to function with AI beyond just the plagiarism that we all fear in the classroom from AI? How is AI being used? And is that a literacy that students will need when they leave university and go into the workforce?

Alex: 22:12

There's a great podcast out there called the Pedagogy Toolkit that talks about this exact thing. It's an episode called Minds of Metal. I would recommend anyone who's curious to give it a listen that discussion on AI and literacy. It's fascinating. To circle back to the practicalities of it. What might be a tangible example of alignment in action, Say a creative writing course that could be very tangible? Want to take a stab at fleshing out what that could look like?

Camie: 22:42

Sure, one thing that I have learned is that it's really important to have both what we call an example, which is the thing that you should be doing. A non-example, which is the thing that really isn't quite fitting what you're looking for. Okay, so let's start with our non-example.

Alex: 23:02

Let's do that.

Camie: 23:04

A non-example for alignment would look like a lesson objective where you ask students to be able to identify and label the organs of a mammal. You give students diagrams, textbooks, images, right? To do this on labeling the organs of a mammal. And then your assessment though is to have students write a two-to-three-page paper describing each organ and its functions within a mammalian species. Your goal was for students to identify and label the organs of a mammal. But instead, you had them describe these organs. So that's not aligned because you're not asking them to do what your goal was.

Alex: 23:54

Okay, so not a better example, but an example, since that was a non-example, would an example then be, if that's still your objective, a more on par assessment would be to have say, a blank diagram. Student goes in and draws or creates the labels and identifies within a blank slate those particular organs and what those functions are, or draws it from scratch, something more along those lines. Is that what you're saying?

Camie: 24:23

Exactly. That's aligned with the goal. If the goal was for students to be able to identify and label these organs of a mammal, then you want to give them the opportunity to do that and you want to assess them on that. You want to have those practices the same thing. If you wanted students to be able to create original prose in a class, then an example of that would be for them to write a composition of prose, right?

Alex: 24:54

Not take like a multiple-choice exam about famous authors or writers.

Camie: 24:59

Right. Or write pros and tells. Not identifying the components of a prose, but actually writing one If your goal is for students to be able to create their own.

Alex: 25:09

Yeah. Now some of those experiences might be used in the buildup the final assessment. That's not that you throw those away, but they fit more into the functioning towards the end game. And the end game being my ultimate assessment for this particular lesson. Or then looking at it in the course level. Maybe all these pieces then fit together. Finally, at the end of the course, students are able to identify key components of prose or writing structures. I'm not an English major, We have multiple in the podcasts. James and Amalie are going to rip me apart in this.

Camie: 25:41

Neither of us are the English majors here.

Alex: 25:44

We barked up the wrong tree. But by the end, yeah, they can identify, they can define, and they can construct or create.

Camie: 25:41

By the end, yeah. By the time, if you ultimately want your students to be able to construct or create their own original prose, then what you do is you don't start by asking them to do that right away. You have to say, what are prose, what does that mean to write one? Have them analyze someone else's show the components of these. How did they approach this and then get to the point where they can practice writing? Until finally, they have that end. This is my final draft.

Alex: 26:24

That's where backward design becomes so vital because you're looking at the very end of the assessment. Or the outcome being I want them to be able to create these original works. Then the step right before that would be the actual drafting and writing process. Well, what's the step before that? Well, what's the step before that? And how can I insert activities and content into each of those steps that really allow me to see the whole picture put together? Really, you can't do that. You can't do it well without backward design and the idea of alignment at the forefront of your mind. So Alignment, backward design. This is more trying to focus on alignment. Backward design really goes hand in hand with it.

Camie: 27:00

I will say. It's not that you can't teach well or that you're a bad instructor if you aren't doing these things, you probably are doing a lot of things really well. This just helps you fill in the holes because you don't want to miss something. You don't want to be asking students to do something that you haven't prepared them for. It gives you peace of mind also to be able to look back and just say, I've looked at this, I have the plan. I don't have gaps. Now, I know that students have what they need to be able to get to this point. And we want people to also think about the skills that we're asking students to use. Because there are students who will come to your classroom and they don't have academic backgrounds. They haven't had academic examples in their life. Yes, they may have gone through K 12 schools and there are things they should've learned.

But especially students who are coming from maybe lower socioeconomic backgrounds. If you come from a rural background…

Alex: 28:10

First gen backrounds…

Camie: 28:13

Our international students who may have a different academic culture than we have in the United States. There are lots of different cultural backgrounds that you'll get in your classroom. Don't take for granted that they know how to use a venn diagram properly, right? Taking opportunities to model, it doesn't have to be anything perfect. It just needs to be something so that they know they're on the right road and they know how to start what you're asking them to do.

Alex: 28:51

If you're listening and wondering how do I get going on this? Again, we've mentioned a few different principles. There are lots of resources out there that can help you get started with alignment. We wanted this to be an intro to that concept if you're unfamiliar with it. There's lots of books out there, lots of articles. Curriculum alignment by David Squires is a good starting point. The Quality Matters team and rubric is a great resource. If your institution already subscribes to it, you might be able to get membership access. There is individual membership access, but there's lots of other alignment rubrics you can search for. A lot of institutions will put them out there as open resources and know that it's always going to be a process just like cleaning is a process, always, right?

Camie: 29:32

Alignment is never finished like the laundry, just when you think you've finished your last load about the closure wear, it's never quite done. It's always a constant cycle. That's where we get with alignment. It's not something that you did it one time and it's done just like dust. These things come back and

Alex: 29:57

Unless you only ever have one outfit and then you just… laundry is really easy.

Camie: 30:03

Laundry becomes easier, but also you have to do it a lot of more often.

Alex: 30:08

That's true.

Camie: 30:10

Think through how you approach this. This is not a one and done. If this is not something you've thought about in the past, it's okay. It's a tool to help you prove those things that you're probably already doing for students. And also make sure that you haven't left out a component that you really meant to include or that is really important for your field or for your course. For students, yeah. Because it's really easy to do that when you're focusing on your course and you're just trying to get everything done. This is just like that front loading portion that will help iron out the rest of the semester so that it's a lot more smooth for you and your students.

Alex: 30:55

It's a concept that can be vague in its abstraction. When you get into the practical application, it becomes very evident and very clear how to align and how to make objectives and things that you want to accomplish in the class match with assessments and activities that you're implementing on a regular basis. I want to put a little bit more clarity to how we see it so that when you get into your building of your course, then you can continue moving forward with this next degree of improvement for yourself, like you said, for the efficiency of those learners. Thanks for joining us on the pedagogy toolkit. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to get more great episodes coming your way in the future. Tune in next time.