Foreword to the first edition:"This book is an exceptional introduction to some difficult ideas. It is full of downright good advice for every academic who wants to do something practical to improve his or hers students' learning."

Paul Ramsden, Brisbane, Australia

Endorsements for the fourth edition:

"Biggs and Tang present a unified view of university teaching that is both grounded in research and theory and replete with guidance for novice and expert instructors. The book will inspire, challenge, unsettle, and in places annoy and even infuriate its readers, but it will succeed in helping them think about how high quality teaching can contribute to high quality learning."

John Kirby, Queens University, Ontario, Canada

"For those teaching in schools and universities this book provides a framework that can be used to guide teaching from thinking about what a program, topic, lesson or lecture should be about, to the execution of the teaching and reflection on the outcomes. The guiding framework emerges from a sound conceptual analysis of the how the interaction between teacher and student can be organised to result in learning that enables students to approach the levels of understanding and problem solving that we hope will emerge from our teaching."

Mike Lawson, School of Education, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

This best-selling book explains the concept of constructive alignment used in implementing outcomes-based education. Constructive alignment identifies the desired learning outcomes and helps teachers design the teaching and learning activities that will help students to achieve those outcomes, and to assess how well those outcomes have been achieved. Each chapter includes tasks that offer a 'how-to' manual to implement constructive alignment in your own teaching practices.

This new edition draws on the authors' experience of consulting on the implementation of constructive alignment in Australia, Hong Kong, Ireland and Malaysia including a wider range of disciplines and teaching contexts. There is also a new section on the evaluation of constructive alignment, which is now used worldwide as a framework for good teaching and assessment, as it has been shown to:

• Assist university teachers who wish to improve the quality of their own teaching, their students' learning and their assessment of learning outcomes
• Aid staff developers in providing support for departments in line with institutional policies
• Provide a framework for administrators interested in quality assurance and enhancement of teaching across the whole universityThe authors have also included useful web links to further material.

John Biggs held academic posts at the University of New England, NSW, Monash University, Melbourne and the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada before being appointed Professor of Education at the University of Newcastle, NSW, then Professor of Education at the University of Hong Kong. He retired early to develop his work on constructive alignment and to write fiction. He returned to Hong Kong in 1999, this time to the Department of Psychology and is currently Honorary Professor in that Department.

Foreword to original edition

Preface to fourth edition

Acknowledgements

The outcomes we intend readers to achieve

Part 1: Effective teaching and learning for today's universities

The changing scene in university teaching

Teaching according to how students learn

Setting the stage for effective teaching

Contexts for effective teaching and learning

Knowledge and understanding

Constructively aligned teaching and assessment

Part 2: Designing constructively aligned outcomes-basedteaching and learning

Designing intended learning outcomes

Teaching/learning activities for declarative intended learning outcomes

Teaching/learning activities for functioning intended learning outcomes

Aligning assessment tasks with intended learning outcomes:principles

Assessing and grading for declarative intended learningoutcomes

Assessing and grading for functioning intended learningoutcomes

Part 3: Constructive alignment in action

Implementing, supporting and enhancing constructivealignment

Constructive alignment as implemented: some examples

References

Index