Instructional Alignment: Optimizing Objectives, Methods, and Assessment for Developing Unit Plans

In response to a quagmire of jargon based and convoluted curriculum textbooks, Instructional Alignment offers a concise and basic approach to instructional design. By exploring the areas of planning, assessment, and methodology, the text explains how these three areas provide an essential framework for effective teaching and illustrates how they align in order to maximize student learning.

Houff guides the reader through the process of developing objectives that identify what the learners should know and be able to do at the end of the lesson. Next, the readers study assessment strategies and tools that correlate with the stated objective in order to accurately determine if the objective has been met. Direct and indirect instructional strategies are then explored to provide the reader with a variety of options or methods to best meet the objective. Final alignment is demonstrated through a project-based unit example that provides a visual representation of theory into practice. With the concluding glossary of current trends and terms in instructional design, readers will finish this key guidebook with a thorough understanding of effective instruction, as well as the capacity to adopt methodical, tested, lessons in the classroom.