Cognitive alignment without textual or evidentiary alignment

Most assessment designs look aligned.
But here’s the uncomfortable question…
Where is the evidence?
I’ve been seeing a pattern across programs:
Assignments that appear to target the right thinking, but don’t clearly produce evidence of it.
This is what I call:
Cognitive alignment without evidentiary alignment.
Everything feels right…
Until you try to prove student learning.
That’s where things break.
A simple check I’ve been using:
Does the task require the skill?
Is the skill clearly stated?
Can you point to actual student work that demonstrates it?
If any of those are unclear, alignment is only assumed, not demonstrated.
The good news?
This is usually fixable without redesigning the entire course.
Often it comes down to:
sharpening the assignment prompt
tightening rubric language
making the evidence visible
I put together a visual breakdown of this idea in the infographic below.
Curious how others are seeing this show up in their programs.
Where have you noticed alignment that looks right but doesn’t hold up under evidence?