Using AI to Align Assessment with Course Objectives

Ana Marjanovic, LMS Admin/Instructional Designer, EdTech &

Sherry Chu, Instructional Designer, EdTech

One of our key responsibilities as instructors is designing assessments that effectively measure student achievement of specific course objectives. These assessments challenge students to engage with the material meaningfully while measuring their learning progress. This task can seem overwhelming for many faculty members, especially when designing assessments that target the appropriate cognitive level for deeper learning. Bloom’s Taxonomy provides a structured framework to address this challenge, helping instructors design assessments that progressively develop higher-order thinking skills.

This unit introduces Generative AI (GenAI) as a practical tool for aligning assessments with course objectives at each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Some GenAI tools that we may use in this microlearning to assist in the assessment creation process include ChatGPT, Claude, Llama, and Gemini. These tools are not intended to replace your expertise as an educator; instead, they support your ability to create more effective assessments while saving valuable time.

Bloom’s Taxonomy: The Foundation for Effective Assessment

Bloom’s Taxonomy classifies cognitive skills into six hierarchical levels: Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating. Each level builds on the previous one, progressing from basic recall of information to higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, evaluation, and creation.

Aligning assessments with these levels helps students absorb information and also demonstrates their ability to apply, analyze, evaluate, and create based on what they have learned. Assessments aligned with these objectives help guide students through a progressive learning path, helping them develop a well-rounded set of cognitive skills.

How GenAI Can Support Assessment Design

This microlearning program provides prompts that will help participants write assignment instructions that align with particular objectives targeting specific Bloom’s Taxonomy levels. For example, if a course objective is for students to analyze different perspectives on a historical event, GenAI can help generate a prompt for comparing and contrasting viewpoints. If a course objective requires creating a new solution to a problem, GenAI can suggest project-based assignments that encourage innovation. The provided prompts use variables in curly brackets (e.g., {topic}, {student_name}) to enable customization.

Addressing Academic Integrity Concerns

Introducing new technology like GenAI into the classroom can raise concerns about academic integrity, especially regarding the misuse of AI-generated content by students. In this microlearning, GenAI tools are intended to assist educators in designing high-quality, targeted assessments while preserving academic standards. These tools will assist in creating well-structured assignments that are challenging, customizable, and aligned with course objectives. The prompts are also optimized to generate scaffolded assignments and provide reflective components to further support academic honesty and meaningful engagement.

Let’s Begin!

In the following units, we will go into specific examples and prompts for creating quizzes, case studies, peer reviews, and more. By the end of this microlearning program, you will have a solid understanding of how to incorporate GenAI into your assessment design process, ensuring that students engage with the material in meaningful and structured ways. Let’s get started!