Athena Rayne Anderson

Alignment is harmony among all the components of a learning unit, including your Learning Objectives (LOs), assessments, activities, and content. You could think of it like all the gears in a machine set up so they work together properly.

Who Cares?

You do.

So do all your learners.

If the components of your course, for example, are out of alignment, you and your students end up wasting a lot of time. Remember busy-work from elementary and high school… and maybe even college? Busy-work is filler activities forced on students when a learning unit is out of alignment or doesn’t take up a designated amount of pre-determined class time. In few cases does busy-work result in significant learning. In fact, busy-work usually only gives learners practice with memorization, which they don’t need, because of the nature of our educational system.

If your learning unit is in alignment, you’re more likely to achieve your original goal as an educator: to make a difference.

How Do You Know?

How do you know when your learning unit is in alignment? For instance, how do you know whether the activities you’ve planned for your workshop will help participants remember the content? I answer this question in detail in Chapter 1: Instructional Design Basics in my book, Simple Instructional Design.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself to discover whether the components of your learning unit are in alignment:

• Are your LOs measurable with the assessments you’ve chosen?
• Can you determine whether learners can achieve your LOs with the assessments you’re using?
• Do the activities prepare learners to complete the assessments?

Learn more about alignment in my book and stay tuned to my blog category, Simple Instructional Design Book for more content sneak peeks and updates on publication!