Aims and purposes

What is the purpose of students' learning and which processes of formation and learning are crucial in your field? How does this affect your choices of learning goals, learning activities and form of assessment?
In the Student Learning module, you can read more about students' learning and how you can support it.

Coherence and alignment

For students to work and learn well, alignment between learning goals, learning activities and assessment forms are essential. Biggs (1999) has conceptualised this coherence as Constructive Alignment, where "constructive" specifies learning as students' active construction of meaning, and "alignment" refers to the correspondence between goals, assessment and activities.

Coherence between goals, assessment and learning activities is central, but the context of teaching i more complex than these three dimensions. Teaching always takes place in specific contexts with specific participants (teachers, students), organisational conditions and resource constraints. Also, content needs to be carefully chosen, and teaching and learning processes structured and organised (Bjørndal & Lieberg 1978, Pettersen 2006, Goodyear 206). Planning and preparing teaching can best be understood and approach as a collaborative and iterative process of considering and making choices concerning multiple element, in order to create a good learning environment.

Relational didactical thinking

^{Made by LINK – Centre for Learning, Innovation & Academic Development}

In this video, professor Tone Dyrdal Solbrekke underscores the complexities of teaching and the dynamic relation between different didactical categories. In the Norwegian educational research context, as a critical response to an instrumental and simplified goal-means approach, emerged in the 1970ies, highlighting teaching as contextualised, and the dynamic interplay between multiple aspects of teaching, as illustrated for example in this model. Choices we make regarding one aspect, needs to be seen in light of all the other aspects, and may imply a need to make changes to these. The purpose of teaching and learning in higher education is foundational for these considerations and choices. The diamond is a good tool for collaborative planning of teaching.

^{This visualization is inspired by didactic relational thinking (Bjørndal & Lieberg 1978). We see that the thinking includes the elements of Constructive alignment, but is more holistic and to a greater extent embraces the complexity of the teaching activity.}

Learning goals

What are the central learning goals for det program, the course, the specific teaching session or learning activity? We recommend looking at the Student Learning module, where we write about which kinds of learning are important at the university, and about different perspectives on learning, as a goal and as a process. It may also be useful to look at Bloom's taxonomy (cft.vanderbilt.edu) and Biggs & Collis' SOLO taxonomy (johnbiggs.com) in order to consider the cognitive level of your learning goals.

A central framework for learning objectives in Norwegian higher education is the Qualifications Framework (nokut.no). This is the National Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning).

Learning objectives should be limited to the central theories, concepts, and skills that students will work with in depth and that have transfer value to other contexts in and outside the educational program (Ramsden 2003, Goodyear 2006).

However, not all learning can or should be pre-defined. One way to still plan for learning is to formulate it as what Eisner (1967) has called expressive goals and process goals. That is, goals that describe situations, tasks, topics, or issues that students will work with. These provide direction for teaching and learning, but do not pre-define expected learning.

Take a look at the goals for your subject/program and discuss:

Do these learning goals represent the most central things you want students to learn?
Do these goals have good transfer value to other contexts in and outside the university?
Do these formulations express clearly, for students, teachers, examiners and potential employers, the expected level of understanding, knowledge and competence?
Do the formulations include educational goals (Bildung/Danning), and process goals?
Division of the program into courses may make it challenging to pursue such learning goals. Who is responsible for these goals? Does your program facilitate progression and coherence with regards to such goals?

Assessment

Form of assessment greatly affects how students approach their learning (Biggs 2012). We recommend looking at the Assessment and Feedback module.

The types of assessments you choose should be suitable both for allowing students to demonstrate what they have learned, and for encouraging them to approach their studies in productive ways.

Take a look at the forms of assessment in your subject/program and discuss:

Do they allow students to demonstrate what they master related to all the different learning goals?
What are the criteria for goal achievement?
Do they allow you to assess the appropriate cognitive level of achievement?
Do they guide students in the direction of deep approaches to learning? (You can read more about approaches to learning in the Learning Module)
Do they provide students with support in their the process of learning?
Are grades or pass/fail most productive?

Learning Activities

Learning activities can be part of seminars or lectures, or take place between sessions in the classroom. An important principle is that activities students do outside the classroom are explicitly related to teaching, learning objectives, and assessment form.

To get the most out of learning activities, students need:

Authentic tasks that they perceive as meaningful and important to solve
That the purpose of the task in relation to their learning process is explicit (meta communication)
Some freedom of choice
To be able to collaborate
Clear instructions, as well as tools and resources
That group work is well organised, for example by dividing into groups and assigning roles and responsibilities
Feedback during the process

Reflections:

Which learning activities may support the central goals in your subject/program?
What support structures may different students need in working with the activities?
What are the feedback opportunities?
How is the learning activity linked to assessment in this course?

Content

The content of the subject affects both learning goals and activities. And decisions must be made about selection and organization of content. Key principles for these decisions are that they are made:

based on the learning goals
with particular focus on key concepts, ideas, perspectives, etc., and with particular focus on concepts that may be challenging for students to understand (read more about learning as a change in understanding and threshold concepts in the Learning module)
with a focus on concepts and skills that have transferable value to further studies and to work and societal participation beyond the course or program.

These principles contrast with planning focuses on covering the entire curriculum or topics in the field.

Reflect and discuss

What is usually your starting point when choosing content for i) a course, ii) a teaching session?
What are key concepts, ideas, perspectives in the area you prepare to teach?
What concepts, ideas, etc. do students often struggle to understand?

Teacher

The teachers involved in a course, their subject expertise and teaching skills, are an element that must be taken into account in planning courses and programs.

What role do you/your team want to have in the student's learning?

Would it be helpful to include learning assistants in your course? (see the module on Learning Assistants)

Organisational and material conditions

What conditions to you need to take into consideration, and what conditions do you have som influence on? You may for example have som influence on the time span and location of your teaching sessions.

Can limited resources, such as time, be used in new ways?

Even though the room for action may be greater than we initially think, there are conditions that enable / limit what we can achieve. This can be the physical learning environment, such as the design of classrooms, digital possibilities and other resources. In the planning process, it is important to find out about these conditions, and your possibilites of influencing them, in advance.

This visualisation is inspired by didactic relational thinking (Bjørndal & Lieberg 1978) and other relational didactic visualisations Pettersen (2006). It emphasises that when we make choices and perhaps change something within one category, we must simultaneously see what this choice means for the other categories. For example, if we introduce a new form of assessment, we need to consider whether the learning activities are suitable as preparation. And wether these are aligned with, or make us consider anew the formulated learning goals.

The visualisation also implies that you must make choices regarding your own role and function in students' learning. And regarding the role you want students to have in the teaching.

Teachers´reflections on how they plan their plan their teaching

In these films, teachers describe how they work and how they think when their prepare their teaching.

David reflects on changing approach to teaching, giving students more room to act and to take responsibility, and about forming ones role as a teacher:

^{Made by LINK}

Marte describes how she prepares her teaching, and how she continuously adapts her teaching to what irises during the lessons:

^{Made by LINK}

Reflection:

What are important goals for your teaching?
It seems obvious that there should be good alignment between goals, assessment forms, and learning activities. What could be the reason why there is not always such alignment?
How can you and your colleagues strengthen coherence and alignment within and between courses?

SOURCES

Biggs, J. (1999). What the Student Does: teaching for enhanced learning. Higher Education Research & Development, 18(1), 57-75. Retrieved 26.04.23 from https://doi.org/10.1080/0729436990180105

Bjørndal, B., & Lieberg, S. (1978). Nye veier i didaktikken?: en innføring i didaktiske emner og begreper. Aschehoug.

Goodyear, P. (2015). Teaching as design. Herdsa review of higher education, 2(2), 27-50. Retrieved 26.04.23 from https://scholar.google.no/scholar?GoodyearTeachingdesign

Pettersen, R. C. (2006). Kvalitetslæring i høgere utdanning-Innføring i problem og praksisbasert didaktikk. Universitetsforlaget.

Ramsden, P. (2003). Learning to Teach in Higher Education (2nd ed.). RoutledgeFalmer.