Aligning Assessments That Truly Support Learning
By Catherine Ford, Program Director for Educational Development, Minnesota State
Assessment is often one of the most visible, and most misunderstood, parts of course design. When thoughtfully aligned with learning outcomes, assessments do far more than generate grades: they provide evidence of learning, guide instructional decisions, and create opportunities for meaningful feedback (Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning). Step 2 of Backward Design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005), determining acceptable evidence, asks us to be intentional about how students demonstrate what they know and can do.
At its core, assessment is a systematic process of collecting and using evidence to improve student learning. It helps instructors answer three essential questions:
- What do we expect students to learn?
- How well are they meeting those expectations?
- How can we adjust teaching to better support their success?
When assessment is treated as an integral part of teaching rather than an endpoint, it becomes a powerful lever for learning.
Why Alignment Matters
Alignment is the glue that holds course design together. As the Eberly Center for Teaching and Innovation emphasizes, learning objectives, assessments, and instructional strategies should reinforce one another. Misalignment, such as assessing skills students were never asked to practice, frustrates learners and obscures what really matters.
Learning taxonomies, such as Bloom’s, can support this alignment by ensuring that assessments match the level and type of learning described in outcomes. If an outcome focuses on analysis or evaluation, for example, a multiple‑choice test alone may not provide sufficient evidence of learning.
A practical tool for checking alignment is course mapping. A course map documents the relationships among outcomes, assessments, and instructional activities, making the course design transparent, coherent, and replicable. Like a well‑kept travel scrapbook, a course map doesn’t replace the journey, but it makes the destinations, highlights, and pathways clear.
Designing with Purpose
Aligning assessments is not about adding more work; it’s about designing with purpose. When assessments are thoughtfully chosen, clearly aligned, and equity‑minded, they support deeper learning for students and instructors alike.
Implementing the Learning Outcomes Tool in Brightspace
By Scott Wojtanowski, System Director for Educational Technology and Development, Minnesota State
D2L Brightspace Learning Outcomes is a tool that supports academic departments and programs in tracking, assessing, and reporting on course learning outcomes. By integrating learning outcomes into Brightspace, departments can collect meaningful data, analyze student achievement, and generate evidence-based reports that support accreditation requirements and inform curricular improvement.
While the concept of the tool is straightforward, implementation can be complex. It involves creating hierarchical frameworks, configuring permissions, mapping outcomes to assessments, designing rubrics, and interpreting detailed reports. These activities require thoughtful planning and technical understanding, which is why training, while not required, is strongly encouraged.
To support departments interested in adopting this tool, the Network for Educational Development will convening a Learning Outcomes learning community beginning fall 2026.
If your department or program is interested in exploring how D2L Brightspace Learning Outcomes can support your assessment and reporting goals, we encourage you to contact ned@minnstate.edu to express interest or request additional information.
Check the Reading Order in PowerPoint
By Scott Wojtanowski, System Director for Educational Technology and Development, Minnesota State
You may have encountered the warning “Check Reading Order” after running the Accessibility Check in Microsoft PowerPoint. What does this mean?
When a screen reader interacts with content in a structured document such as Microsoft Word, it typically follows a predictable reading path, starting at the top left of the page, moving left to right, and then continuing line by line. PowerPoint works differently. Slide content is placed within placeholders and objects, which must be arranged in a logical sequence so assistive technologies can interpret them correctly.
PowerPoint uses a feature called Reading Order to determine how screen readers move through slide content. If objects are out of order visually or structurally, a screen reader may read them in a confusing sequence. This linked video demonstrates how a screen reader interacts with a PowerPoint slide and why reading order matters.
Refer to this accompanying Microsoft support article for step by step instructions on how to make slides easier to read by using the Reading Order pane
View more digital accessibility tips.
Register for the NED Teaching and Learning Conference
By Megan Babel, Communications Coordinator, Minnesota State
The NED Teaching and Learning Conference will be held September 24-25, 2026 at North Hennepin Community College (Brooklyn Park) and Online. The conference is an opportunity for Minnesota State educators to network, collaborate, and share their evidence-based experiences, and learn from each other as we explore the theme Empowering Every Learner: Strategies for Universal Access.
Free registration opportunity:
If you successfully completed 3 or more NED courses between Fall 2025 and Summer 2026, you can receive free registration to the 2026 NED Teaching and Learning Conference.
How to Claim Your Free Registration:
- Complete at least three NED short courses during the eligibility period (between Fall 2025 and Summer 2026)
- Email ned@minnstate.edu from your institutional email once you’ve met the requirement
- Attach the completion certificates
- Include the name of the courses you completed in the body of the email
Email the Network for Educational Development
View past editions of the Educational Development Digest.
Visit the NED Events Calendar to view upcoming educational development opportunities. Visit the NED Resource Site for recordings of previous webinars and additional resources.
