Constructive Alignment of Learning Outcomes with Student Perceptions in a first-year Engineering Course.

This innovative practice, work in progress paper investigates constructive alignment in a first-year engineering course. Constructive alignment describes a course environment where stated course outcomes are in alignment with what students learn in the course. This study develops a novel method to explore the extent of constructive alignment. Drawing on minute papers which were already incorporated in the course, the study uses student responses to a final minute paper which required students to reflect briefly on what they learned in the course. Qualitative analysis of 189 responses determined four main themes, with two of them featuring prominently in some detail: teamwork and problem-solving. This was important evidence of alignment as these are key outcomes of this project-centered course. A further interesting finding was that students see programming as a focus for their learning but don't explicitly link it to the modeling of an engineering system as stated in the course learning outcomes.