In a perfect world, learners would take the time to read the learning outcomes in a syllabus, but most learners skip to the assignment calendar. While learners are savvy about what it is expected from them by looking at deadliness, I make sure provide with an overview of the course structure, outcomes, and expectations of the course. This overview serves a few goals: an ice breaker to what they will be learning, highlighting outcomes in friendly terms, allowing them to understand the time they have for projects and creating a sense of autonomy for where to get help.
While the overview provides guidance and what they will learn or develop at the end of the course, framing instruction helps with scaffolding students toward learning goals. This involves connecting the dots with what learners accomplished in the past, their current projects, and what is coming in the future. By making these connections, it allows me to highlight their gaps and reinforce core ideas or skills for the entire class and individually.
Instructor-student feedback is essential to understanding whether students are meeting the learning outcomes and the challenges they encounter. In my courses, whether I design or teach, I ask learners to become peer-reviewers for providing formative feedback to their peers. While learners have to analyze someone else's work, providing feedback in a tactful manner creates a sense of community while applying critical thinking skills.
Being a course reviewer, the word 'alignment' is ingrained in my brain. As teachers and designers, it is well-known that building knowledge and allowing mastery are the foundations of the learning process. However, I learned a valuable lesson when I spent my days in the learning and development industry. That is, building connections with outcomes, mastery, and assessment with potential contexts that learners may be immersed allows for cognitive engagement and motivation. And more importantly, My goal is that learners use what they learned out of the class.