Outcomes-to-Assessments Alignment Check

Overview:

Tool: NotebookLM or Gemini*

Time: 20–30 min

What you need: your course learning outcomes and your major assessment descriptions

How to do it:

1. Collect your learning outcomes (from your syllabus) and the descriptions of your major graded assessments. If they are in separate documents, that is fine.
2. Choose your tool:
   1. Open NotebookLM and upload both documents as sources, OR 
   2. Open Gemini and paste them directly into the chat.

3. Paste the prompt below:

   "Here are my stated learning outcomes and my graded assessments. For each learning outcome, identify which assessments measure it. Then identify: (a) outcomes that are never actually assessed, (b) assessments that do not clearly map to any stated outcome, and (c) outcomes that are over-assessed relative to others. Present the results as a simple table, with outcomes in column one, and assessments that measure it in column two."

4. Review the table. Identify any outcomes with no corresponding assessment, and any assessments that don't clearly connect to an outcome. These gaps are your design priorities.

Notes: 

This analysis is based on your documents, not on how students actually perform. A well-aligned course on paper can still have implementation issues.

For a deeper alignment review or full course redesign support, connect with a member of the TLTC's Academic Innovation team.

*We encourage you to exclusively use UMD-approved GenAI tools, which are deployed in alignment with institutional security and compliance requirements.