Aligning Outcomes, Activities and Assessment

I firmly believe that it is necessary to know where you are going in order to create a significant learning environment. Educators need to consider that outcomes, activities, and assessments need to be aligned. Teachers must carefully evaluate their learning environments and situational factors before creating significant learning goals and using an inverse design to develop a course or unit. It is more than connecting the dots; we cannot be providing students with only content when we should be focused on connecting the dots, allowing our learners to make connections with their learning (Godin, 2012).

Education should always focus on students' learning.  So it stands to reason that we should remove as many barriers to learning as we can. Outcomes, activities, and assessments should be aligned in foundational knowledge, application, integration, human dimension/caring, and learning how to learn (Fink, n.d.) in order for significant learning to occur. Significant learning in authentic learning environments allows students to develop connections and learn based on context instead of content, which is crucial to developing lifelong learners.

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According to Fink’s guide (2018), I have created a 3-Column Table that outlines the learning goals for my innovation plan.  The plan that I have developed for my 3rd grade bilingual students is to improve their reading fluency and reading levels because most of them are not at their grade level, implementing a model called blended learning.