Motivated students with constructive alignment

By applying constructive alignment at different levels, you provide an integrated and effective learning process that students are motivated to engage in. Students are generally very goal oriented. This means that when the learning objectives, learning activities, and assessment are not aligned with each other, students usually adjust their goal-oriented learning behavior to the assessment or exam only. As a result, they are less motivated, achieve poorer results and (possibly) rate your course lower.

The different levels of constructive alignment
Constructive alignment is a multifaceted concept that you can apply at different levels of education, including classroom level, course level and program level.

1. At the classroom level, it means aligning specific learning objectives, instructional materials, and assessment methods. Take, for example, the learning objective of getting students to understand how molecular forces affect electron orbitals. As a learning activity, you could give a demonstration where you show a simulation and allow students to influence it themselves by adjusting variables. For evaluation, you could have them complete a quiz on the topic.
2. At the course level, learning objectives, instructional materials, and assessment methods are aligned not only within one lesson, but also between lessons in one course. Let's take an example of a course that aims for students to acquire a deep level of understanding of 19th-century European History. Throughout the course, students may study various texts and historical documents, participate in discussions, and make presentations about important events and individuals of the period. Additionally, they could choose their own theme to work on. The final test of the course includes essay questions that ask students to demonstrate their understanding of 19th-century European history using their own chosen topic. This aligns better with the learning objective than, for example, a multiple-choice test that requires students to merely reproduce knowledge from the learning sources.
3. At the program level, constructive alignment is about aligning objectives, learning activities, and assessment across multiple courses and years. For example, the goal of the Bachelor’s program in Earth, Economics, and Sustainability is to prepare graduates for a career as sustainability experts. Throughout the program, students take several courses on topics such as climate change, flooding, and the loss of natural areas. These courses also include activities that students will perform in their future jobs, such as fieldwork and research projects. At the end of the program, students are assessed on their ability to develop and apply sustainable solutions in real-world situations with problem owners such as governments, environmental organizations, municipalities, farmers, and businesses.