A3 - Alignment of Objectives

NOTE: A unit may be a single module or may contain more than one module, depending on your course structure.

Unit content and activities should be directly related to the unit learning objectives so that student attention is focused on what you want them to learn and do within each module/unit. When this relationship is present, it is easy to ensure the coherence and effectiveness of instruction as well as assessments (which are addressed in section C).

Be sure each module/unit has adequate material to meet the objectives, but not so much that it's overwhelming. The "curse of the expert" is we have a tendency to give too much information; on the flip side, we may over-estimate students' prior knowledge and leave out key information. ;-) If you are providing content that is interesting but rather extraneous to the unit learning goals, be sure to separate it out and clearly label it as optional.

SLOs are generally too overarching to qualify as unit-level objectives. Though, of course, the unit-level objectives should "feed into" the SLOs.

Examples

1. A module includes the following learning objective, "examine social movements associated with California Progressivism" and contains several primary sources from people of the time period describing their experience of and involvement in social reform.
   
   
2. The learning objective states "define basic terms related to databases" and the module contains a page labeled "Basic Terms/Vocabulary."

Non-examples

1. A module includes a learning objective, "describe the various layers of the Earth and how each behaves" but the module content is all related to the Earth's magnetic field and plate tectonics.
   
   
2. The stated learning objective is "compare the various fields of psychology" but the module only contains content and activities about clinical psychology.

Where to Look

Begin by looking wherever the unit-level objectives were found for A1. Then look through corresponding module content.

What to Look For

Look in each module to determine if the content/activities present are clearly related to the stated learning objectives. Also, ensure the content is sufficient for students to meet the objectives.