Principle of Constructive Alignment - Research Proposal Example

Principle of Constructive Alignment Name Institution Course Date Abstract The teachers view of learning frequently influences the way that teacher teaches and assess students. Teachers are required to apply the principle of constructive alignment to address the learning activities. The article reports on the outcome of a research about teacher’s application of the principle of constructive alignment in the real classrooms. Furthermore, the paper also states in detailed the teachers beliefs about learning and the student assessment activities. Among the articulated issues in this article are the suggestions for the way teachers should apply the principle of structural alignment in class assessment to improve the students learning outcomes. The paper supports the discussion by providing the reference with the list of all the sources used in the writing of this report. Introduction Constructive alignment is an outcomes-based methodology used for designing, promoting and for assessing the deep student learning (Anthony, Ishizuka & Lukose, 2012). The concept of constructive is established on the belief that the learner constructs his or her learning by engagement in the relevant learning activities. Besides, alignment denotes what the teacher does that to create an appropriate learning environment. It is seen from the research that this principle of constructive alignment extensively is applied in the real classroom by the majority of the teachers. The teachers should select the most appropriate learning and teaching activities and more so the assessment tasks for every of the expected learning outcomes (Fransson & Friberg, 2015).This report aimed at interviewing a teacher to establish on what they do to ensure proper alignment between the learning activities and the assessment to ensure that the students meet their expected learning outcomes. Besides, the article also suggests some relevant teaching activities that are recommended to be applied by the teacher to aid them meets their course objectives (Anthony, Ishizuka & Lukose, 2012). Finally, the article provides a summary in the conclusion and gives a list of the references uses to support this research. Methodology An interview was conducted involving one of the principals of one institution for about twenty minutes. An audio recording was created during the interview, which was later used to evaluate the teacher’s teaching and assessment activities. Some questions were asked to the teacher on the various thing and activities about how the teacher conducts the learning processes. The Results and the Discussions The interviewed teacher was a teacher of both the physical sciences and the applied sciences. The teacher stated that he had been in the field of teaching for the past twenty years. The teacher nullified down on his experience in the teaching. Having met a different type of hardships and challenges involved in the learning process, he shared out willingly his experiences. And from the research, it was possible to relate what he claimed to be doing in the real classroom with the principles of constructive alignment and the following was recorded. The research finding indicates clearly that, student assessment is very significant to the education process. There are three types of assessment that are used by the teachers in assessing students. These includes the summative, formative and continuous assessment (Fransson & Friberg, 2015). The summative assessment is those assessments that are used to suggest competence or those that contributes to the student’s grade in particular module, course or degree (Marais, 2013). On the other hand, the formative assessments are those assessments that are strictly used to give student’s feedbacks on their learning progress, but they do not form part of the student summative marks or grade. Finally, the continuous assessment. They primarily involve the series of the task that are personally assessed. Although, they are recommended sometimes that a final assessment be added (Anthony, Ishizuka & Lukose, 2012). The evaluation is best applied when various different module learning results are attained at definable stages during the module. The teacher stated that the assessment is a very significant factor that is used by the teachers to determine the progress of the students. The teacher can establish from the feedbacks of the assessments the abilities of the students to acquire, memorize and also to apply the knowledge that is taught in the classroom (Anthony, Ishizuka & Lukose, 2012). The teacher believed that learning typically takes place through the lively behaviours of the student. He states that it is what the student does that he or she learns and not what the teacher does. However, he concludes that the teacher needs to hold the responsibility of making the course constructively aligned (Larkin & Richardson, 2013). According to the teacher, teachers must ensure that the following is well known to the student. First, the teacher must make sure that the course learning objectives are well stated clearly to the students. Also, the teachers should make sure that the learning objectives are explicitly communicated to the students. Besides, the teacher is also required to ensure that the exam’s assessments are matching with the course learning objectives (Marais, 2013). Finally, teachers must make sure that the course teaching forms are matching with the course learning objectives (Larkin & Richardson, 2013). However the teacher also claimed that sometimes, some problems underpin the process of constructive alignment. For example, a teacher can adequately define the objectives of the course study (for example the student to learn how to compare and analyse some aspects), but the nature of the exam assessment the teacher uses is such that it measures something different (for example the ability of the student to identify and memorize). With such like cases, the student may end up totally ignoring the teachers intended course objective and tends only to study for what is directly needed by him or her on the exam (Larkin & Richardson, 2013). Besides, the constructive alignment is underpinned by aspects like the general understanding of the course goal. The problem associated with this is that, the student and the teacher may not (in fact, they normally do not) have a similar interpretation of the expected learning outcomes (Fransson & Friberg, 2015). The teacher also revealed that, the efforts of the teachers to meet their expected objectives and student outcomes are also affected highly by the student absenteeism. This affects the general results of that student as the teacher will teach and assess those who are present. To some extent, this consumes the teachers constructive productive time as he or she will spend time responding to an individual consultation instead of attention to the whole class as scheduled in the course form (Anthony, Ishizuka & Lukose, 2012). From the interview with the teacher, there is no doubt to conclude that the learning outcomes entirely depend on the learning activities that the student is engaged in. Therefore, teachers must apply the theoretical policy of constructive alignment in the real classroom work to direct the students on what they are supposed to do to achieve the best outcomes (Herdsa.org.au, 2015). As a result, teachers are expected to apply the following teaching practices. Every teacher (unless they are unit course teachers), should individually create or draft the course learning form that should be used as a guide during the course study. The guide should explicitly state the course objectives, and they must be communicated to students. The teacher must make sure that there is no general understanding of the course objectives (Anthony, Ishizuka & Lukose, 2012). Having clearly stated the learning objectives and the expected learning outcomes for the students, the teacher should fully engage the student in activities that will directs them towards the expected outcomes (Shi et al., 2013). This should include daily homework on the covered lesson. The teacher should arrange frequent assessment to assess the student’s ability to memorize and recall what they have been taught. However, the teacher must ensure that the evaluations are in line with the purpose it indents to serve (Joseph & Juwah, 2012). The teacher should also ensure that the assessment task also gives the students the room to present their own proofs that they have attained the criteria in an open-ended manner such as portfolios that allow the students substantial flexibility in the demonstrating their learning (Willhauck, 2010). Furthermore, the teachers should introduce consisted group projects during the course study. Besides the group project, the teacher should also give individual multiple choice test projects at the end of every course study (Anthony, Ishizuka & Lukose, 2012). This happens to evaluate the student preference if they are to choose freely among all the reasonable forms of estimation for the measuring of the proposed learning outcomes (Willhauck, 2010). As well, the teacher should also implement other teaching activities like giving lectures to the students. The teacher should introduce the student the fundamental concepts of the course unit (Herdsa.org.au, 2015). In addition, he or she should also teach the student the applications of the standard solution to the frequent concurrency problems expected in terms of models and implementations. As a means for the students gaining hands on the practical skill in the implementation, construction, verifying and testing model, applying standard solutions to the common concurrency problems, and defining properties, the teacher is required to introduce the modelling and programming labs (Anthony, Ishizuka & Lukose, 2012). Also, the teacher needs to present sample multiple-choice questions. This acts as a stand for the students to learn how to analyse and also compare models (Joseph & Juwah, 2012). With this, the student learns for the multiple choice exams. Therefore, the teacher examines the students understanding by giving questions without the correct answers. More so, the teacher needs to maintain weekly hand-ins (Anthony, Ishizuka & Lukose, 2012). This should be given in the form of small necessary exercises, where the students are requested to construct and implements the model with a particular stress on the related models and their implementations. By so doing, the students are trained for the project and after that receives individual feedbacks on their hand-ins (Husu & Tirri, 2007). Finally, the teachers are supposed to ensure an active theoretical exercise classes. This is used to act as a means for the students to learn on important aspects on how to apply the variations of the common solutions to the standard problems (Itu.dk, 2015). With this teaching activity, the student receives individual feedbacks from the teacher that supervises that class at the moment. Conclusion Traditionally, it used to be believed that knowledge is transmitted from the teacher to the students. However, the research gives controversy to this. The study reveals that the learning outcome of the student depends on the learning activities that that student is associated with and not what the teacher does (Husu & Tirri, 2007). However, the study reveals again that the teacher plays a very significant role in directing the whole process of learning. The teacher has to be determined with the course objective so as to engage fully the students in positive learning activities that will eventually enable them meet the expected outcomes (Alidina, 2015). As it is seen in the above discussion, the teacher must practise some teaching activities to make the ends meet. The research has also shown some teaching activities that underpin the efforts of the teachers to attain their aims and the expected student outcomes. Meanwhile, by teachers applying the theoretical policy of the constructive model in the real classroom, they stand a better place in meeting their students expected course outcomes (Anthony, Ishizuka & Lukose, 2012). Finally, the students’ needs to be determined and corporative with their teachers so as to motivate the teacher in engaging them fully. Appendix The interview started at 11:00 AM, and among the asked questions were • The subject(s) he teaches • How long he have been teaching • To draw and explain a diagram showing his view of how the learning process takes place • His definition of the term assessment and how he uses it in the real classroom • The purpose to why he uses the assessment • Explaining the steps that he would follow to develop a learning and the teaching program • Finally, he was asked if he had any other comment about his assessment approach that he could like to add The following is the interview transcript Interviewer: (the interview took place in the teacher’s office) thank you sir for this opportunity. Which subject (s) do you teach? Interviewee: thank you too. I teach both physical and applied sciences. Interviewer: For how long have you been teaching? Interviewee: Over the last twenty years. Interviewer: Can you briefly define the term assessment and tell why you use it in real classroom? Interviewee: I can say that assessment refers to the frequent tasks given to students. I use them to evaluate on the progress of the student. More so, I use the assessment tasks to evaluate the ability of the student to acquire, memorize and apply what is taught in real field activities. Interviewer: Which steps do you use to develop you teaching program? Interviewee: First, I develops the course objective. Then communicates to the student and agrees on their expected outcomes. Next I evaluate the time we have to accomplish the course then from that I develop the program. Interviewer: Do you have anything you can add? Interviewee: What I can say is that, an appropriate assessment process requires higher cooperation between the teacher and students. As a teacher, you must motivate you students to enable the engage fully with a positive attitude. Interviewer: Thank you sir for your time and cooperation. Interviewee: Thank you too. You are welcomed. References Alidina, S. (2015). Mindfulness for dummies. Hoboken: John wiley. Anthony, P., Ishizuka, M., & Lukose, D. (2012). PRICAI 2012. Berlin: Springer. Fransson, O., & Friberg, T. (2015). Constructive alignment: from professional teaching technique to governance of profession. European Journal Of Higher Education, 5(2), 141-156. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2014.997264 Herdsa.org.au,. (2015). HERDSA. Retrieved 25 September 2015, from http://www.herdsa.org.au Husu, J., & Tirri, K. (2007). Developing whole school pedagogical values—A case of going through the ethos of “good schooling”. Teaching And Teacher Education, 23(4), 390-401. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2006.12.015 Itu.dk,. (2015). Velkommen. Retrieved 25 September 2015, from http://itu.dk Joseph, S., & Juwah, C. (2012). Using constructive alignment theory to develop nursing skills curricula. Nurse Education In Practice, 12(1), 52-59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2011.05.007 Larkin, H., & Richardson, B. (2013). Creating high challenge/high support academic environments through constructive alignment: student outcomes. Teaching In Higher Education, 18(2), 192-204. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2012.696541 Marais, K. (2013). Constructive Alignment in Translator Education: Reconsidering Assessment for Both Industry and Academy. Trans-Int, 5(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.12807/ti.105201.2013.a01 Shi, J., Fu, W., Wu, Q., Zhang, H., Zheng, Z., & Zhu, J. (2013). Endoscopic third ventriculostomy associated 3D-construcive inference steady state MRI for obstructed hydrocephalus: A retrospective study. Clinical Neurology And Neurosurgery, 115(7), 896-901. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.clineuro.2012.08.038 Willhauck, S. (2010). God's Stuff: The Constructive Powers of Chaos For Teaching Religion. Teaching Theology & Religion, 13(1), 64-70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9647.2009.00576.x Read More