Aligning teaching and learning activities with expected learning outcomes

The alignment of teaching and learning activities and assessment tasks with intended learning outcomes, applying the concept of constructive alignment developed by Biggs (1999/2003), is a crucial factor to the success of outcome-based teaching. In the course “Putonghua and Chinese Language Teaching”, the author attempted to realize outcome-based teaching by setting up intended learning outcomes, which served as a basis for the design of teaching and learning activities and assessment tasks. Feedback and performance by students reveal that outcome-based teaching provides students with enhanced learning opportunities with greater involvement. Whether these opportunities are effectively improving the quality of learning, and what factors affect this quality, are issues to be discussed in this paper. It is hoped that this critical evaluation can inform studies of curriculum development.