Inge Kiezebrink

Constructive Alignment

Written by: I.M. Kiezebrink (Inge) MA MEd 17 June 2026

Does everything in my course fit together?

The course catalogue information has just been finalised. Perhaps you have submitted the learning objectives for next academic year's course in a bit of a rush, outlined the framework for the learning activities in your course and selected the assessment methods for your summative assessments. Great, because now you don't need to think about those things anymore. But does this chosen package actually fit together? Can the knowledge and skills you want to impart on your students through your course be properly assessed using the assessment methods you've chosen? And do your learning activities sufficiently encourage the desired learning behaviour in students? In this blog post, you can read more about how learning goals, teaching activities and assessments align with one another.

The model, which you have most likely heard of before and which forms the basis for a coherent curriculum, is Bigg's constructive alignment (1996). This model demonstrates that there is a relationship between learning goals, learning activities (or didactics) and assessment. The aim is to create an environment in which students develop the skills set out in the learning objectives and demonstrate, in an appropriate manner, that they possess the desired skills. Essentially, the model can be compared to a three-legged stool; if one of the legs is broken, the stool becomes wobbly or, in the worst-case scenario, even topples over. We must prevent this from happening, but how do we go about it?

Constructive alignment
Visual representation of constructive alignment (Radboud University, 2026)

Designing education

In your course design, you probably start by creating your learning objectives, followed by the learning activities and, finally, the summative assessments. After all, you cannot develop all components at the same time, yet you do want all components to fit well with one another. While developing one component, it is important to keep in mind another component and, in particular, the relationship between the two. The questions and accompanying resources to make the constructive alignment tangible, listed in the table below, may provide you with further guidance during your course design.

Table questions constructive alignment
Comprehensive visualisation constructive alignment
A more comprehensive visualisation of constructive alignment (Sluijsmans, 2026)

You can probably already tell from reading the questions that constructive alignment is not only important at course level, but also during the individual learning activities that students undertake throughout your course. To illustrate this, Dominque Sluijsmans (2026) presents a more comprehensive model that looks not only at constructive alignment at course level (referred to as ‘period’ in the figure), but also looks at the alignment at the smaller level of a single teaching activity (class) and at a level that transcends the course (programme).  

The model already shows that not only the goals, assessments and learning activities need to be interconnected at each level, but that there should also be an interconnection between the learning objectives at class, period and eventually programme level. Through the small learning objectives you set – and, hopefully, share – for each learning activity, your students take small steps towards ultimately mastering the course objectives. Subsequently, by mastering the course objectives, students take steps towards ultimately mastering the final learning outcomes (programme objectives), upon which they will be awarded their degree. Logically, this means that there must be coherence between learning activities on all levels and assessments at each level.

When developing your teaching, you should ideally work backwards from the overarching objectives to the specific objectives (backwards design). Start by identifying the steps students need to take to show they have achieved a learning outcome: which objectives are part of this? Once you have defined your course objectives, it is key to think which specific steps students need to take to achieve the course objectives (class objectives), how they can take these steps (individual learning activities) and how they can show they have mastered the learning objectives (summative assessments, feedback moments, etc.). To illustrate this structure in your course design, the table below provides a fictional example of a healthcare programme (Sluijsmans, 2026). In this table, you can see the connection between the different components at a given level (horizontal), but also the connection between a component across different levels (vertical).

Fictional example of a healthcare programme

As a course teacher, you will not always be involved in developing the curriculum, so you may not be able to complete a table such as the one above in full. However, it is recommended to try filling in the table for your own course(s). How are all the learning activities connected? Which learning objectives underpin your course objectives and to which specific learning activities are these connected? How do you ensure you gain an insight into the students’ learning and that the students themselves also know where they stand in relation to each of the learning activities? Asking such questions (more inspiration can be found in the table) helps you identify areas of your course design that may still require some attention. In this way, you can make your course more effective than it already is.

Need help?

TIP can support you with constructive alignment at programme, course and class level. We can help by thinking through things (critically) with you, but we also have ready-made templates for assessment matrices, assessment specification tables and a constructive alignment table. On request, we can also help develop resources, in whatever form, to ensure that the various parts of your teaching are even better aligned with one another.

Read more

  • Biggs, J. (1996). Enhancing teaching through constructive alignment. Higher Education, 32(3), 347-364. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00138871
  • Biggs, J., & Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university (4e editie). Open University Press.
  • Radboud University. (2026). Using constructive alignment in your education. https://www.ru.nl/en/staff/lecturers/designing-education/designing-courses/integrating-learning-objectives.
  • Sluijsmans, D. (2026). Verbindend toetsen in een doordacht curriculum. In A. van Berkel & D. Sluijsmans (Red.), Toetsen in verbinding: perspectieven en praktijkvoorbeelden voor het hoger onderwijs (pp. 20-45). Telos Uitgevers.
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