In constructive alignment, we first state the learning outcomes we intend our students to achieve. The outcome statements contain a learning activity, a verb, that students need to perform to properly achieve the outcome. That verb (e.g. 'explain', 'apply', 'reflect') then needs to be activated by the teaching/learning activities we give students: lecturing to them usually doesn't do that. The assessment tasks should also require students to enact that same verb. It's so obvious: if we are educating students to solve professional problems, the best way for them to learn is to get them to solve professional problems, not to listen to us rabitting on about problem-solving. How well they solve those problems is the authentic assessment, not sitting exams about what we've told them about problem-solving. That verb is what achieves alignment: it's in our intended outcomes, in the teaching/learning actvities and in the assessment tasks. Traditionally, educational systems are not aligned. The curriculum is usually a list of topics telling teachers what to ‘cover', the default teaching method is the lecture, in which students are told about the topic—they don't have to enact their understanding. Memorising material to report back in an exam likewise rarely requires students to put their understanding to work. The SOLO Taxonomy helps to map levels of understanding that can be built into the intended learning outcomes. Constructive alignment is also used in the context of quality assurance/enhancement for university teaching.
See also: Teaching for Quality Learning at University, Buckingham: Open University Press/McGraw Hill, 2007. This third edition has been rewritten with Catherine Tang. It presents working examples of constructive alignment on the basis of our work in Hong Kong on implementing outcomes-based teaching and learning.
A 20 minute introduction is given by Teaching Teaching & Understanding Understanding an award-winning DVD from the University of Aarhus, Denmark, written and directed by Claus Brabrand [www.unipress.dk]. For specifc examples Google “constructive alignment”
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