Before you decide on the content to cover in your course, endow your course with a strong internal structure conducive to student learning. Alignment among three main course components ensures an internally consistent structure. Alignment is when the:

• OBJECTIVES articulate the knowledge and skills you want students to acquire by the end of the course
• ASSESSMENTS allow the instructor to check the degree to which the students are meeting the learning objectives
• INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES are chosen to foster student learning towards meeting the objectives

When these components are not aligned, students might rightfully complain that the test did not have anything to do with what was covered in class, or instructors might feel that even though students are earning a passing grade, they haven't really mastered the material at the desired level. From Carnegie Mellon, Eberly Teaching Center