Part Two: Project Report

I chose to redesign my course utilising Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy (to tighten up the Learning Objectives to explicitly reflect the level of processing required) and Constructive Alignment (to strengthen the alignment between the Learning Objectives and the Summative Assessment).

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When revisiting the Learning Objectives, I referred to Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy to ensure the verbs I had chosen accurately reflected the “application” and “understanding” requirements of the course (Churches, 2010).

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Previously, I would naturally design courses in a method similar to Constructive Alignment, the only difference being that I would design the content/resources, then supporting activities, followed by the Summative Assessment (Biggs, 2014). 

Bringing forward the design of the Summative Assessment ensures that there is no loss of clarity or alignment between the Summative Assessment and the Learning Outcomes, as there has been no opportunity for the course content to be “muddled”, especially when Subject Matter Experts attempt to add and rework information that may not necessarily be directly relevant or supportive of achieving the Learning Objectives (Biggs, 2014). The duration of this course (30 minutes) means that Learning Activities would be excessive and a duplication of the Summative Assessment. 

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Constructive Alignment has been shown to facilitate deep learning when implemented effectively, allowing learners to construct knowledge via engaging with course content that has been carefully designed to be concise, relevant, and aligned in its entirety (Wang et al., 2013). Although Constructive Alignment restricts learners in exploration, the course objective in this specific context is to have all learners complete defined tasks in a consistent manner, so the lack of exploration in this context is not an issue.

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Additionally, a Constructive Alignment approach to designing the Summative Assessment ensures careful consideration has been given to how the Learning Objectives can be measured, and all assessment activity directly relates to and supports the objectives of the course by utilising the verbs applied in the Learning Objectives (Biggs, 2014).

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In the context of this course, learners’ achievement against the Learning Objectives would be deemed to be either Complete or Incomplete as varying levels of competency in a system simulation is not possible – learners either complete the system action or they do not (Biggs, 2014).

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Learners in this context benefit, as, already being time-poor, they prefer learning that is concise, directly relevant to their role and not superfluous (Schultz, 1992). Constructive Alignment ensures that, from the outset, learning can be designed to be lean and wholly relevant to the learner. Course Learning Objectives are designed to authentically reflect the end goal of the learning need (Biggs, 2014).

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Additionally, utilising a Constructive Alignment design approach would theoretically create a uniform method for course design moving forward for the Shine Lawyers Learning and Development Team, providing a consistent level of quality and a design process that ensures all learning is learner-centric, relevant, and concise (Biggs, 2014). This standardised design approach would undoubtedly lead to efficiencies and improvements in design timelines, as previously, members of the Learning and Development Team did not have a consistent approach to curriculum or course design and there was no set process in place (Conole & Wills, 2012).