Course Design Template and Alignment Matrix

Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins, who created the Understanding by Design framework, plan curriculum backward in three stages: desired results, then evidence, then the learning plan¹. They have found that working backward helps avoid the "twin sins" of planning around activities or around coverage.

Write each outcome as something a student does that someone else could see and grade. Carnegie Mellon's Eberly Center lists "Understand X" and "Gain an appreciation for X" among the typically vague objectives². Its fix is to ask what students would do differently if they really understood. Your answer is the outcome.

Map each course outcome to the program outcome it serves, in your program's own words, and claim only what this course will grade. NECHE, a federally recognized accreditor, asks each college it accredits to set goals for student learning at the institution, program and course levels³ and to assess them. A learning outcomes template helps with the wording, and a program curriculum map shows the whole program at once.

Next, decide what students will hand in. McTighe and Wiggins ask designers to think like assessors before planning units and lessons¹, settling first what they will accept as evidence. For each outcome, name the graded task and the part of it that shows the outcome. A final paper that mentions ethics doesn't show that students can apply a review board's criteria.

Match the task to the verb in the outcome. Carnegie Mellon's Eberly Center describes the mismatch to avoid: an objective asks students to apply analytical skills, but the exam measures only factual recall⁴. A quiz can show recall. Evaluating calls for something like a critique, and creating calls for something students make.

Then weight the items to total exactly 100, with the most points on the outcomes that matter most. Watch the timing too. If an outcome's only evidence is a paper due in the final week, nobody learns how students are doing until it's too late to help. A small early task, carved out of that paper's points, fixes that.

An alignment matrix crosses the outcomes with the graded items. A tick in a cell says an item touches an outcome, but not how much of the grade rides on it. So add the weights and read the matrix both ways. That answers the question McTighe and Wiggins pose: is anything important "slipping through the cracks because it is not being assessed?"

1. 1

   Check the total

   Add up every item's weight. If it isn't exactly 100, fix that first.

2. 2

   Go outcome by outcome

   Add up the weight of the items measuring each one. An outcome at zero is measured by nothing.

3. 3

   Go item by item

   List the outcomes each item measures. An item with none carries points for nothing you stated.

4. 4

   Divide each item's weight

   Split it across its outcomes. A 15-point exam covering three outcomes gives each one 5 points of evidence.

Participation and attendance points often have no outcome behind them. If they matter, write the outcome they measure. If not, let their points fund an outcome that nothing grades.

Now plan the teaching. Give each module the outcomes it serves and the graded work it prepares students for. A module that serves no outcome should be a decision, not a leftover. Date every week from the academic calendar, not by counting forward from day one, so no deadline lands in a recess week.

In the US, the credit hour sets a floor. Federal rules say a semester credit hour should reasonably approximate at least one hour of class and two hours of outside work each week⁵, for about 15 weeks. A three-credit course should therefore ask for at least 9 hours a week, 6 of them outside class: 135 hours over the term.

Estimate each week from the actual reading and writing. Rice University's Center for Teaching Excellence, which publishes a course workload estimator⁶, notes how little research exists on how long college tasks take. It puts reading a textbook for understanding, with some new concepts, at about 14 pages an hour. Its rate for an argument essay revised at least once is about 2 hours per double-spaced page.

Read the spread, not just the total. This course clears the floor for the term, yet its first two weeks fall short and three weeks reach twice the floor. Ease the heavy weeks where you can, and avoid a big deadline in the last week of classes, when every other course is ending too.

Draft the syllabus last, from the design. Use each outcome's exact wording everywhere it appears. Give the grade table a column naming the outcomes each item measures, so students can see where the points sit before they plan their week. A college syllabus template has sheets that check each date against the registrar's calendar and each required section against your institution's policy.

To skip the arithmetic, open the template on this page in River. It builds the matrix both ways from your own outcomes and weights, then adds up each week's hours from the figures you give it.