Begin With The End in Mind – Constructive Alignment

 

It is the exam season again and in this issue, we are featuring ‘The Assessment Issue’.

 

Imagine telling driving school students that they will be able to drive the car properly. They were then taught on perpendicular parking but were assessed driving on a hill. This is a common scenario in medical school where the syllabus is huge and becoming difficult to manage.

 

As the famous book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People advocates Begin With The End in Mind, so should us, the educators. Biggs (2003) has proposed constructive alignment model where assessment, teaching strategies and learning outcome should be in coherence to maximize the impact of teaching and learning.

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To help us managing the ever-expanding syllabus, Dr Jamilah wrote on quick

Blueprinting tips. In order to design assessment that drives learning, we featured

Dr Al-Aarifin (Assessment For Learning), Dr Saiful (Types of Assessment) and Dr

Fuad (Key Features Question). As bigger challenges await in handling postgraduate

education, we share with you available online resources to help to improve our

courses. Sit back, relax and enjoy your reading. ea