Beyond alignment?

Beyond alignment?

I’m an active teacher • Course team member for: • MSc(HRM) • Developing Workplace Skills, f2f and online (undergraduate modules) • E_teaching on PGCertHE (Dubai, Orkney and Gala) • External examiner • QAA reviewer • On that basis, I ask myself (and you)………..

Alignment? Are the concept, and concern for it, beginning to outlive their usefulness? Is it time for (some of us) to move on?

My argument is that: • We did need to think about alignment, when it was notoriously absent in many curricula • We are well on the way to getting our act together, across the sector, item by item • Blended and self-directed learning are now calling increasingly for an integrated approach to outcomes, learning and assessment by learners (and teachers)

Familiar questions in curriculum development and review are now: • Do the aspects of our curricula fit compatibly together? • Is our assessment in accordance with our stated learning outcomes? • Are the learning activities designed to help our students to achieve our stated outcomes? • Does our assessment only – and completely - reward achievement of our outcomes?

Representing Ideal Alignment Outcomes Learning & T Assessment All within FHEQ requirements

Starting point? Outcomes Learning& T Assessment

1. Outcomes: are what we want the learners to be able to do, worded sufficiently precisely and clearly to be usable

The rationale - • - for having, stating and declaring intended learning outcomes is that: • “If you don’t know where you’re going, any bus will do”

2. Assessment enables the teachers and the learners, to find out the learning and development which has happened

This “Hidden Curriculum” is very influential Outcomes Learning & T Assessment

So the rationale • - for aligning assessment and outcomes is that… • ..since “Assessment is indeed the engine which drives learning”… • … then it should clearly point learners towards the achieving the chosen outcomes

3. Teaching, for me, is: - the purposeful creation of situations from which motivated learners should not be able to escape without learning or developing

So the rationale • - for aligning learning and teaching with outcomes is that…. • …we (as teachers) should set out purposefully to create situations in which the desired learning and development should happen

Full alignment means that our curricula fit together Outcomes Learning & T Assessment

But do they? • In the 1990’s, they often didn’t! • This was perhaps the most common weakness in courses in HE • It was evident in: • QAA baseroom evidence • module boxes • internal programme review • external examining visits • It suggested considerable scope for consequential enhancement

Problems can arise - • The elements tend to be dealt with separately • Learning outcomes feature prominently in initial design of programmes and modules • Assessment may almost be taken for granted at that stage – and when designed may follow conventional lines as much as the LOs • Details of learning and teaching activities are often worked out later • Hence lack of alignment

Recent mismatches between LO’s and assessment: • “Students will be able to solve demanding problems” • Almost 50% of a final year exam paper asked questions whose model answers were word for word, and symbol for symbol, in the ppt notes • “Students will formulate critical judgements and analyses” • Assessment rewarded straight regurgitation of analyses and judgements which had featured in lectures, seminars and recommended reading

Recent mismatches between LO’s and T & L activities • “Students will develop their ability for creative problem-solving and design” • Activities simply called for these abilities to be used, without effort devoted in teaching for development • “Students will learn to work effectively in groups, to manage teamwork, and to resolve difficulties and differences” • The already able did well; the less able did poorly, and only developed incidentally

Recent mismatches between teaching and learning – and assessment • Teaching devoted much time to explaining the meaning of key concepts………. • ….. but the assessment simply called for routine and accurate use of familiar algorithms • “All my teaching brings the students to think, to the required FHEQ level ” • … but the model answer for at least one final year question showed that it called for, and generated, and rewarded, the same points and examples from most students. Thinking?

Please discuss with a neighbour: Does alignment matter? Is it a useful concept? How well aligned areour current modules? What might a rigorous reviewer question?

Generally, in 2008, things have changed greatly: Best practice now features: Rigorous programme specifications; Carefully detailed outcomes; Improved T & L activities; Fairly appropriate assessment

Student-centred learning is now common, and entails: • Student direction and management of their learning • Declared, and understood, and often negotiated, outcomes • Teachers facilitating, and but not directing • Carefully defined and explained tasks and roles • Valuable (and, increasingly, valued) unintended learning outcomes

Consequently today’s students must • Know where they want to get to • Notice when their progress is ineffective or in the wrong direction • Adjust their plan accordingly • Depend on formative self-assessment, whether or not that is part of the explicit programme structure • Collaborate in socio-constructive settings, wherein their self-assessment is aided by peer-assessment

The result is that, in best current practice: Outcomes and assessment can, and often do, convey much the same message. Assessment tasks and criteria often spell out the learning outcomes adequately

So the three elements are conflating! Outcomes T & Learning Assessment

Indeed outcomes and assessment often meld! Outcomes T & Learning Assessment

- to become….. Outcomes and Assessment T & Learning

Further assimilation is hampered because…. ….it isn’t always easy to match higher level and interpersonal outcomes with appropriate, and effective, learning activities and assessment Outcomes and Assessment T & Learning

In 2004, Dave Boud and I concluded that the next logical step will be: To bring these two remaining aspects more and more together - with intrinsic self- or peer-assessing – happening as the learning progresses

Thus moving from here … Outcomes and Assessment T & Learning

…. to here Assessment and Desired Outcomes and Learning and Teaching

This implies more movement to learner-directed learning Which changes not just who directs – but also how learning is managed

We thus move from: directs LEARNING TEACHER and LEARNER

to: directs LEARNING LEARNER with facilitative support TEACHER

which often implies: OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT PLANNING MONITORING of must initially consider LEARNING LEARNER with facilitative support TEACHER

Let’s explore fully learner-directed learning This includes choice of outcomes by the learner

At the outset, learners may: • Work on an agreement involving (SMART) objectives • Such objectives cannot really be produced without a fully integrated approach!

Specific : What do I want/need to be able to do? Measurable?: How will this learning or development will be judged – under what headings, against what criteria, with what data? Achievable : How will I achieve this and what resources or support will I need? Relevance and ‘added value’ : What will be its use to me personally and professionally? Time restricted : Target dates for review and completion SMART Learning Objectives

In this initial planning • The learner has to consider, and specify coherently: • Their aspirations (LOs); • The feasibility of their programme (L & T) • Expected standards (Assessment criteria)…… • The data to be collected to inform judgements of progress (Assessment) • Thus necessarily combining or integrating all three aspects of programme design, during planning and before approval

When monitoring, the learner: • Reviews data to date about learning progress • Reviews viability of (SMART) objectives • Re-specifies them, if appropriate (LOs) • Confirms expected target standards (Assessment criteria) • Plans next stage of programme (L & T) • - again integrating LOs, Assessment, and Learning & Teaching

Teacher-directed Staged consideration of LOs, Assessment and T & L, is not uncommon Alignment needs to be checked Learner-directed The contract, in whatever form, requires all aspects of the plan to be considered at the outset – together Alignment is inbuilt The comparison is thus:

Summarising: • An integrated approach is potentially effective, especially if it entails self- and peer-assessment; • This is true whether a programme is to be teacher-directed or learner-directed • In learner-directed learning, the teacher needs to be assured that all is in order, before handing over responsibility

What do you think of these final assertions? Does integration, rather than mere alignment, seem a viable and desirable next step in curriculum development and monitoring?

Please discuss with a neighbour Is integration possible – and desirable? What problems could it create? Will we want to consider this possibility further with our colleagues?

I leave you with this battle cry…….. Let’s press on ….. …. beyond alignment…. ………towards integration, within learner-directed learning

Are you willing to rally to that banner? - or at least to explore what it might offer to you and your students?

If I can help you in so doing, then please…. Contact me, and expect me to be interested and to wish to assist I am: J.Cowan@hw.ac.uk

Beyond alignment?