Alignment: A Course Design Card Deck
Coming soon! Course design can be difficult but with practice comes better course designs and thus better student outcomes. Introducing Alignment: A Course Design Deck which Justin designed to help give instructors practice at designing courses via aligning assessments and activities to learning objectives and tailoring this process to specific course design situations and figuring out how to overcome barriers.
Contents
Alignment: A Course Design Deck includes 52 cards that cover five different categories
Learning objectives: Six cards, one for each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Each card contains eight action words to help you get started writing SMART learning objectives.
Assessments: 11 cards that cover different types of large, summative assessments.
Activities: 19 cards that include pre-class, in-class, and after-class activities that give students practice opportunities.
Situations: Eight cards that represent different course design situations or modalities that you can tailor your alignment exercise to.
Barriers: Eight cards that include the most common barriers to using evidence-based course design strategies.
How to Play
You can play on your own or in a group!
1. Choose a topic from a class that you teach or want to teach
2. Shuffle and place the Learning Objectives (LOs), Assessments, and Activities cards face down in separate piles
3. Flip over the top card from each of the three piles
4. Come up with an aligned LO, Assessment, and Activity that fits your topic and discuss
5. Advanced play: Add the Situation and/or Barrier cards as additional piles and flip them over to be challenged to tailor your idea to that specific situation and/or barrier!
