3.1 Using AI for Outcomes Alignment
This section outlines how faculty can use Copilot, with detailed prompts, to review and enhance alignment across course components.
Ensuring Quality Through Alignment with AI
Alignment in education refers to the coherence between learning outcomes, assessments, and learning activities within a course, ensuring that each element effectively supports and measures the achievement of the desired learning goals. Proper alignment is crucial for maintaining the integrity and effectiveness of a course, as it helps to avoid gaps or overlaps and ensures that all components work together harmoniously to achieve educational objectives (Liu, Zhao, & Li, 2023).
AI apps like Microsoft Copilot can help ensure your course learning activities and assessments align with the intended learning outcomes. By analyzing course materials and assessments, AI can verify that they map directly to the goals listed on your Course Outline and program page. It can also identify gaps, suggest additional activities, or highlight redundancies to improve course coherence.
Course Outcomes, Essential Employability Skills, and Degree Level Outcomes
At Conestoga College, outcomes are essential for determining and measuring learning. Program outcomes are listed on program pages. Course outcomes and unit outcomes are listed on Course Outlines.
Ontario’s Essential Employability Skills and Degree Level Outcomes are fundamental components of outcomes-based education at Conestoga. These outcomes define the critical skills and knowledge students are expected to acquire by the end of their programs. Essential Employability Skills include communication, teamwork, problem-solving, self-management, digital literacy, and adaptability. Degree Level Outcomes focus on deeper competencies such as knowledge, critical thinking, communication skills, research and inquiry, professional and ethical conduct, and application of knowledge.
These outcome frameworks are integral to preparing students for success in both their academic and professional lives, ensuring they are well-equipped to meet the demands of the modern workforce. You can use AI tools like Microsoft Copilot as faculty to ensure that your course provides students with consistent and supportive learning experiences aligned appropriately with course outcomes.
To explore these outcomes, you can use the provided prompts to guide your investigation of lesson activities, assignments, and more. These prompts are designed to help you understand how AI can enhance your curriculum by focusing on essential skills and competencies. By experimenting with these prompts, you can uncover ways to leverage AI to support and enrich students’ learning experiences, ensuring your teaching methods align with Conestoga College’s commitment to outcomes-based education.
Select the accordion items below to explore Essential Employability Skills and AI.
Select the accordion items below to explore Degree-level Outcomes and AI.
Using AI to Identify Course Outcomes Alignment
With detailed prompts and documents uploaded to MS Copilot, generative AI can help to assess the alignment of your Course Outline and your Instructional Plan, lesson activities, and assessments. Start by sharing learning outcomes, then make requests to evaluate the alignment with an assessment design, instruction activities, and student feedback.
Flowchart and Checklist for Checking Course and Outcomes Alignment With AI
Select the flow chart for checking outcomes alignment. Selected the highlighted sections for more checklist questions.Â
Optimized Learning Outcomes Power Prompt, adapted from Dr. Phillipa Hardman
You are an expert in course design at the level of [level] for the following [topic or program]. I will give you a set of learning outcomes. Your task is to provide recommendations for how to optimize them for learner motivation and achievement in the course design.
To do this, you must always use the following rubric for writing, sequencing learning outcomes, and providing recommendations for implementing the learning experiences :
- Every course learning outcome has a verb from Bloom’s taxonomy
- Learning outcomes are sequences from simple to most complex, according to Bloom’s taxonomy
- There are no more than 5 to 8 course learning outcomes
- Every learning outcome avoids addressing the learner directly
- Every course learning outcome has associated unit outcomes
- Assignments in an assignment matrix assess every course learning outcome.
- Recommendations must include risks, implementation steps, and suggested time frames
[insert course learning outcomes and assignment matrix]
Caution: Protecting College Intellectual Property
When using AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot to analyze and input college property, ensure you are using only the enterprise-licensed version of the software provided by the institution. This ensures compliance with licensing agreements and maintains the security of institutional data. Additionally, avoid copying and pasting copyrighted content directly into AI chatbots or external platforms, such as textbooks, articles, or proprietary materials.
Always use AI tools to generate insights and support based on summaries or original content you created rather than directly reproducing copyrighted materials. This approach helps safeguard intellectual property and adheres to ethical and legal standards