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Authoring & Adoption: Standards Alignment: Home

Overview

Standards Alignment
Aligning educational resources with academic, professional, and institutional standards facilitates course materials meeting curriculum goals, learning outcomes, and accreditation requirements. This process includes identifying relevant standards, such as state frameworks, professional standards, or institutional benchmarks, and mapping them to OER as part of the authoring and adoption process and/or mapping them to library materials within reading lists. Effective alignment takes upfront work but makes the assessment of learning easier as a course progresses. Alignment should also integrate seamlessly upstream into the university’s broader assessment management systems, enabling clear reporting on resource impact and compliance. 

Standards Alignment Topics

A number of interrelated concepts work together to frame and structure course content from the concept and design phases of a course all the way through to the specific final assessments of individual students' learning in the course. Courses are designed based on educational standards, and curricula are developed based on competencies, though the competencies also cascade down to the course level. Learning outcomes are the specific learning tasks designed to impart knowledge and skills related to the standards and competencies. Rubrics provide the specific criteria and descriptions of different levels of achievement needed to measure and provide an assessment of student learning. Below are some definitions and how they relate to each other in assessment of student learning.

Definitions

Educational Standards (aka "the what")

Educational standards are produced externally to specific learning institutions and state the knowledge or skills a student should be able to demonstrate at various stages of their education (the what). They are discipline specific and prescriptive of specific skills/knowledge, and so are designed and attained in specific courses/disciplines. Examples could include national standards (e.g., Common Core State Standards) or discipline-specific standards (e.g., InTASC Model Core Teaching Standards). They are operationalized by learning outcomes.

Competencies (aka "the why", or the purpose of the learning)

Broad competencies (also referred to as institutional goals or values) are produced internally to each learning institution and state the institutional values and priorities that will be instilled in graduates. They are cross-disciplinary and focus holistically, and so are designed and attained cumulatively across courses/disciplines. Examples of competencies include Critical Thinking, Information Literacy, Problem Solving, Quantitative Reasoning, Teamwork, and Civic Engagement. They are also operationalized by learning outcomes.

Learning Outcomes (aka "the how")

Learning outcomes are specific, measurable, course-level or assignment-level statements that map specific tasks to these educational standards and competencies.

Rubrics (aka the "how much", or the measurement)

Rubrics list which criteria of a task are measured and outline levels of achievement in student performance. They serve as a link between instruction and assessment, ensuring that the evaluation is aligned with both educational standards (the "What") and competencies (the "Why"). Some specific rubrics are listed on the MNOP Review and Quality Control page.

Example

Element Role Example
Educational Standards Define the What: The knowledge or skill students must demonstrate. "Students will demonstrate the ability to write a persuasive essay (e.g., CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.1)."
Broad Competencies Define the Why: The overarching purpose or institutional mission. "Critical Thinking: Develop well-reasoned arguments supported by evidence."
Learning Outcomes Define the How: Specific tasks or skills students will complete. "Write a 3-paragraph persuasive essay that includes a thesis, supporting evidence, and a conclusion."
Rubrics Define the How Much or the Measurement: How achievement is evaluated. Criteria for the essay: "Thesis clarity," "Use of evidence," "Logical flow," each rated on a 4-point scale.

In Practice

Though in general standards are characterized as externally produced and competencies internally produced, in practice all of the above elements are shared between practitioners and modified for local use. For example, external bodies may develop a framework of competencies meant to serve as a starting point for an institution's internal development of competencies (see the AAS&C VALUE Rubrics).

Standards alignment and standards mapping sound similar but are different processes and shouldn't be used interchangeably.

Standards Alignment

Standards alignment has a broad scope at the course and program levels and should happen early in the course design process to ensure things are on the right track before more specific content is created. Being aligned means course content meets accreditation and institutional goals, and also that the teaching materials are developed in alignment with the stated student learning outcomes. Being broader in scope, standards alignment should follow the enterprise assessment effort which is managed by university, college, and department administrators, deans, and heads.

Standards Mapping

Standards mapping is a more specific and detail-oriented activity that involves the rolling up of sleeves during development of the course content to match that content and the learning tasks to specific standards and learning outcomes. 

Key Differences Between Alignment and Mapping

Aspect Standards Alignment Standards Mapping
Scope Course/program-level Lesson/activity-level
Timing Early in the design process During content development or review
Purpose Ensure overall course or program compliance Identify specific links between content and standards
Result Broad confirmation of alignment Detailed mapping documents or tables

 

Standards, learning outcomes, competencies, and course content become a lot to keep track of as a course is designed and built. The clarity of how these things are organized, displayed, and shared, and the ease with which it is all accessed, are especially important for those supporting open and affordable content. Well-documented, standards-aligned content increases an open work's modularity. Below are some logistical considerations in instantiating aligned and mapped course content:

Standards Mapping Examples

Table:

Standard OER Section Learning Objective
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1 Chapter 1: Understanding Themes Analyze themes in literary texts.
NGSS.HS-LS2-3 Unit 2: Ecosystem Dynamics Evaluate the impact of human activity on ecosystems.
Institutional Outcome 1.1 Module 3: Critical Thinking Develop evidence-based arguments.

In-text annotation:

Use callout boxes, sidebars, or footnotes within the OER content to indicate alignment. For example:

  • "This section aligns with CCSS.MATH.Content.HSF-IF.B.4, focusing on interpreting functions in graphs."

Metadata tagging:
For OER, include metadata for standards. For instance, many applications come with a tagging system which could be leveraged for grouping and linking elements:

  • Tags: [#NGSS.HS-PS1-1], [#CriticalThinking], [#LiteracyGoals].

Sharing Documentation

Where will you document the standards and mapping?

  • Within the resource itself, for instance authoring and publishing tools like Pressbooks, Manifold, LibreTexts, etc.
  • Assessment management systems, e.g., Watermark Taskstream, Chalk & Wire, Anthology Outcomes
  • Accreditation and program review systems, e.g., CourseLeaf, WEAVE, Compliance Assist, Campus Labs
  • In other management systems, e.g., the learning management system or a library's reading list management system
  • Various institutional and open repositories, included as a separate document in a bundle with the main text
  • Other platforms like CASE (Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange)

New Research on Standards Alignment