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Intended Learning Outcomes, Constructive Alignment & Backward Design

Before you begin to create your lesson plan, it will be useful to understand the approaches of constructive alignment and backward design, as this will impact the order in which you follow the BOPPPS model.

Constructive Alignment

“Constructive alignment…is an outcomes-based approach to teaching in which the learning outcomes that students are intended to achieve are defined before teaching take places.” (Biggs, 2014, p. 1).

Simply put, constructive alignment means that both the teaching activities and the assessments being used in a lesson should directly align with the intended learning outcomes (ILOs) the instructor has for the students. By first identifying the ILOs, the instructor can ensure their teaching methods and content directly provide education towards that goal, and that their assessments are a direct measure of student achievement of that goal. The three areas are aligned using a verb that clearly identifies what the student should know, be able to do, or value, and to what degree of mastery (Biggs, 2014, p. 8).

Triangle Image with the text Intended Learning Outcomes: What can students do at the end of the course? Learning Activities: What learning activities will help students achieve these learning outcomes? Assessment and Feedback: How do you know if a student has achieved these outcomes?
Figure 1: Image of the three elements of constructive alignment: intended learning outcomes, learning activities, and assessment and feedback

As shown in the Figure 1 (above), constructive alignment can be practiced by instructors asking themselves these three questions (beginning with the intended learning outcomes):

  • Intended Learning Outcomes: What will students be able to do, know, or value by the end of the course?
  • Learning Activities: What specific learning activities will help the students achieve these ILOs?
  • Assessment and Feedback: How will you know if your student has achieved these ILOs?

Wiggins and McTighe (2005) took this concept one step further with their backward design approach.

Backward Design

Backward design is a complementary framework to constructive alignment, with one key difference:  assessments are designed prior to developing any teaching activities. In their book ‘Understanding by Design’, authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe (2005, Chapter 1) write:

“This is all quite logical when you come to understand it, but “backward” from the perspective of much habit and tradition in our field. A major change from common practice occurs as designers must begin to think about assessment before deciding what and how they will teach. Rather than creating assessments near the conclusion of a unit of study…backward design calls for us to make our goals or standards specific and concrete, in terms of assessment evidence, as we begin to plan a unit or course.”

Thus, the order of lesson planning becomes:

  1. Identify the intended learning outcomes (ILOs) you want students to be able to do, know, or value
  2. Design assessments for evidence of learning, calibrated to the appropriate level of the ILO verbs
  3. Develop content and activities designed to teach each of the ILOs in a way that allows the assessment to determine if the ILO has been achieved

In particular, the authors emphasize that instructors should not simply rely on a source of content (e.g an entire textbook) to define what will be taught in a course. A source should instead be chosen for its ability to enable students to achieve the intended learning outcomes. Each ILO may require a different learning source.

Examples of Backwards Design

Choose one of the tabs below to review an example of what this backward planning process could look like.

 

Blooms Revised Taxonomy: Writing Learning Outcomes

As you have now learned, defining intended learning outcomes can be considered the foundation of lesson planning. The following video will introduce you to Blooms Revised Taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001), a popular framework used to help create intended learning outcomes. Bloom’s Taxonomy has a particular focus on the use of action verbs that define the level of thinking (lower or higher order) that a student will require to achieve each specified outcome.

Note: The terms learning outcome and learning objective are often used interchangeably.

This video briefly demonstrates Blooms Revised Taxonomy. The video describes the 4 types of knowledge (also explained in the cited literature above), then explains the 6 levels of Blooms Revised Taxonomy. It also provides an example of how the 6 levels could be applied to a single piece of learning.

Expandable List

An effective structure to follow when writing learning outcomes is to break them down into the following components:

Introduces a specified audience and a timeline for achieving the outcome

E.g., By the end of this online module educators will be able to….

Use Bloom’s taxonomy verbs to define what level of knowledge or ability the learner will reach

E.g., By the end of this online module you will be able to create…

Add a learning statement that indicates what the content will relate to

E.g., By the end of this online module you will be able to create a lesson plan…

Indicates any additional context or criteria the learner will need to demonstrate

E.g., By the end of this online module you will be able to create a one-page lesson plan using each component of the BOPPPS model.

Activity: Part 2

In parts 2-4 of the activity, you will apply the concepts you have learned from Blooms Taxonomy, constructive alignment, and backward design to the BOPPPS framework.

Return to your BOPPPS template and begin your lesson planning by creating one or more learning outcomes for your chosen topic using the Stem + Action Verb + Content + Criteria structure.

Use these Bloom’s Taxonomy – Cognitive Domain examples to help you select a level of thinking and an associated action verb.

References

Biggs, J. (1996). Enhancing Teaching through Constructive Alignment. Higher Education, 32, 347-364. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf00138871

Biggs, J. (2014). Constructive Alignment in University Teaching. HERDSA Review of Higher Education, 1, 5-22. https://herdsa.org.au/herdsa-review-higher-education-vol-1/5-22)

Office of Teaching and Learning, University of Guelph. (n.d) [Figure 1: Image of the three elements of Constructive Alignment: Intended Learning Outcomes, Learning Activities, and Assessment And Feedback]. Retrieved April 6th, 2026 from https://otl.uoguelph.ca/course-curricular-design/course-design

Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Complete Edition. New York: Longman.

Krathwohl, D. R. (2002). A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview. Theory Into Practice, 41(4), 212–218. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4104_2

Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. (2005).  Understanding by Design (2nd ed.). Retrieved from https://andymatuschak.org/files/papers/Wiggins,%20McTighe%20-%202005%20-%20Understanding%20by%20design.pdf

Bloom’s Taxonomy, Office for Faculty Excellence, NC State University. Retrieved May 7th 2026 from https://provost.ncsu.edu/ofe/blooms-taxonomy/

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning – Revised, Centre for Teaching & Learning, Alberta University. Retrieved May 26th 2026 from https://www.ualberta.ca/en/centre-for-teaching-and-learning/media-library/instructional-resources/creating-learning-outcomes/wmblooms-taxonomy-of-learning.pdf