How do we make it more likely—by our design—that more students really understand what they are asked to learn?

Backward design and alignment are approaches to learner-centered course design help students understand the purpose of a course, and how to navigate their learning to achieve the desired outcomes. It also helps you, the instructor, ensure that all elements of your course support the most prioritized aspects of student learning.

Backward Design: A Road Trip Analogy*

With no roadmap, students navigating our courses might only pass by landmarks that they like and miss really critical priorities. Backward design helps us to make sure that a course introduces the most important skills, strategies and content, and that both the instructor and student know how they are progressing towards those goals along the way. It proposes three steps to course design, which we can frame with the following analogies to questions about our road trip.

Where do we want to go? (Goals and objectives)
How will we know if we have arrived? (Assessments, summative and formative)
What will we need to help us get there? (Instructional methods, activities, course materials, course schedule)

Alignment: This is a process where we make sure that every element of the course lines up with and supports the achievement of the course's learning objectives.

BMW E39 523i at the mountain pass between France & Italy.

* After Darby, F., & Lang, J. M. (2019). Small teaching online: Applying learning science in online classes. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.