Prompting AI to Help Align Assignments with Learning Outcomes

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Description

Are you struggling to come up with an activity, assignment, or assessment that maps to a particular learning outcome? Or, would you like to get some feedback on one you already have? AI can help.

As the instructor, you will of course bring your knowledge, expertise, experience, and creativity to making any course activities your own. AI can be a valuable partner in multiple phases of assignment development, from generating ideas to fine-tuning ideas. The suggestions below are organized according to assignment development purposes. You can start at the beginning, or dip into one specific purpose depending on your needs.

Steps

Purpose: Generate Ideas for Assignments

Prompt the AI to generate a list of in-class learning activities (or out-of-class assignments) that align with a specific outcome from your syllabus.
- Provide some background information such as the course topic and the level of the students.
- Enter the prompt that includes instructions to connect the learning activities to the provided outcome.
- Enter an outcome from your syllabus.

The prompt might look something like this:

Review the results and fine-tune as needed.
- If you didn’t get the kinds of activities that would be appropriate for your course, give it some additional specifics about how to improve the results. For example, you might say you need an activity to take no more than 30 minutes to complete, or that you’d like the students to do an assignment in groups of 3-4, for example:
Once you have an idea that you’d like to work with, you can enter the activity description generated by the AI and ask it to develop instructions for the students for completing the activity, or you could ask the AI to generate a list of sample assessment criteria.
Continue to prompt and refine until you are satisfied.

Purpose: Get Feedback on an Existing Assignment

If you’d like feedback on an activity you already have, follow a similar procedure.

Prompt the AI to provide feedback on an activity that you have selected.
- Provide some background information such as the course topic and the level of the students.
- Enter the prompt that includes instructions to provide feedback on the activity description and the related learning outcome(s).
- Be sure to specify what type of feedback you’d like, such as how closely the activity maps to the outcome, how engaging the activity is, how student-centered it is, etc.
- Enter a detailed activity description.

The prompt might look something like this:

“I am teaching a media studies course on the topic of how social media is impacting elections. My students are all media studies majors in their third year of the program. One of the learning outcomes is: Explain why social media is more influential than traditional media in elections. Connected to this outcome, I am planning to have my students develop a persuasive argument about why social media is more influential than traditional media in elections. They will present their arguments in a blog post that is approximately 1000 words long. The second part of the assignment will be for the students to ask critical questions of 3 peers in regard to the arguments presented in their blog post. How well is this activity aligned with the outcome? How can I strengthen it to ensure a high level of critical thinking?”

Review the results and fine-tune as needed.
- If the feedback was not helpful, or seemed off-the-mark in some way, provide additional instructions to fine-tune the results. For example, you might ask questions about anything that is unclear, you may ask it to provide additional detail, or you might ask it to provide a different type of feedback.
Continue to prompt and refine until you are satisfied.

Suggestions

Clearly Link Assignments to Course Outcomes/Objectives: Explicitly state how each assignment aligns with specific course outcomes/objectives, helping students recognize the relevance of tasks to their overall learning. Clear alignment ensures coherence in the course structure and facilitates deeper student engagement with content.

Ensure Authenticity and Intellectual Rigor: Design assignments that reflect authentic disciplinary practices, challenging students to apply knowledge in ways relevant to their future academic or professional roles. Authentic, rigorous tasks enhance student motivation, critical thinking, and the transferability of skills.

Scaffold Complex Assignments to Support Learning Progression: Break down larger assignments into smaller, sequenced tasks that progressively build the skills necessary to meet advanced learning objectives. Structured scaffolding supports diverse learners, increases student confidence, and promotes higher-order thinking, essential for success in research-intensive contexts.

Communicate Transparent Assessment Criteria: Share clear, criterion-based expectations directly tied to learning objectives, providing rubrics or explicit guidelines. Transparent assessment promotes equity, reduces anxiety, and allows students to self-assess their progress toward achieving course objectives.

References

Biggs, J., & Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university: What the student does (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.

Fink, L. D. (2013). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses (Revised ed.). Jossey-Bass.

Nilson, L. B., & Goodson, L. A. (2018). Online teaching at its best: Merging instructional design with teaching and learning research. Jossey-Bass.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (Expanded 2nd ed.). Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).

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