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Student Learning Assessment Resources

Introduction to Curriculum Alignment/Curriculum Mapping

The resources provided here encompass two aspects of curriculum alignment:

  • For core courses, curriculum alignment focuses on how course SLOs align with a specific Core Area Learning Outcome. This alignment should be evident throughout the assessment process, including teaching strategies, the selected assessment methods, the way data is analyzed, and the proposed improvements in the action plan.
  • For academic programs, curriculum alignment is established by creating a curriculum map which shows the intentional design of your program with the intention of building students' skills and knowledge relevant to each of your program learning outcomes. This alignment should be evident throughout the assessment process, including teaching strategies, the selected assessment methods, the way data is analyzed, and the proposed improvements in the action plan.

Ensuring the alignment of program SLOs (or Core Area Learning Outcomes) with course SLOs, teaching strategies, and assessment methods is critical to collecting data that can be used to make meaningful improvements to student learning. Backward design is a useful curriculum design strategy to develop clear alignment of curriculum and assessment.

This video provides a simple explanation of curriculum alignment, including student learning outcomes, teaching strategies, and assessment methods. A clear description of this type of alignment is expected in both academic program and core course assessment processes and documentation. How have you aligned your teaching strategies and assessment processes to your program or core area SLOs? What is the benefit of this alignment in terms of using assessment data to improve student learning?

Curriculum Alignment Resources