Teaching Strategies: Curriculum Design
Faculty undertake revisions of the curriculum for a variety of reasons including shifts in disciplinary approaches and emphases and changes in student demographics and interests. The links in this section provide guidance for faculty who are undertaking curriculum design or revision.
The National Academy for Academic Leadership: Designing a College Curriculum (Gardinier, 2000)
http://www.thenationalacademy.org/readings/designing.html
Lists principles to consider when assessing the quality of curricula in a review process. These principles apply both to college-wide and more restricted disciplinary curricula and to curricula at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. This resource also offers tips for clearly defining curricular outcomes.The National Academy for Academic Leadership: Curriculum Review (Diamond & Gardinier, 2000)
http://www.thenationalacademy.org/readings/curriculum.html
Included are a number of key questions to ask when reviewing curricula. Most of them are germane whether a curriculum is in general education or a specialized field. Although designed for reviewing curricula that already exist, many of these questions also can be helpful when beginning to design a new curriculum.The College Curriculum Renewal Project (Georgetown University)
http://cndls.georgetown.edu/about/grants/ccrp/
Examples from a Georgetown initiative to revise the curricula of individual courses. The most important guiding question for the College Curriculum Renewal Project has always been: How do we expand and deepen student learning? And more specifically: How do we expand and deepen student learning in the core curriculum? In the major? How do we reward and encourage the most intellectually interested and curious students in a particular subject?Curriculum Design and Revision (Carleton College)
http://serc.carleton.edu/departments/programs/curriculum.html
This is a useful resource on how a program actually does curriculum design. This site is specific to geoscience departments, but the information and processes are applicable widely. See also the following link from Carleton on the matrix approach to curriculum design: http://serc.carleton.edu/departments/programs/matrix.html.Matrix Approach to Curriculum Design (Carleton College)
http://serc.carleton.edu/departments/programs/matrix.html
For many years, the Geology Departments at Carleton College and the College of William and Mary have utilized a "matrix approach" to assessing and revising their curricula. Rows of the matrix represent essential skills to be developed and columns represent courses within the core curriculum. This allows faculty to see where skills are developed and whether there are any "skills gaps" within the curriculum.Western (Ontario) Guide to Curriculum Review (McNay, 2009)
http://www.uwo.ca/tsc/pdf/PG_4_Curriculum.pdf
Comprehensive and useful booklet from the University of Western Ontario. It includes a brief discussion of the “hidden curriculum” (p. 11), which is often learned more readily, understood more thoroughly, and remembered longer than is the official curriculum.Thank you : http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/tscd.php
