How is curriculum developed

Outside the U. We're glad you asked! Based on the science of how students learn and fueled by innovative technology to make learning interactive and engaging, our curriculum is created by an experienced team. We also incorporate feedback from parents and students through surveys, focus groups, lesson reviews, round-table discussions, and product testing. The K—8 curriculum includes core courses that focus on developing fundamental skills and teaching the key knowledge building blocks or schemas that each student needs to master the major subject areas, meet state standards, and complete more advanced coursework.

The curriculum includes informal or formal assessments built into nearly every lesson to ensure mastery and provide for remediation or enrichment where necessary. As students move through middle school and into high school, their work becomes increasingly independent. High school courses are designed for students targeting a four-year university, a local community college, or an immediate career.

Many high school courses are offered at two levels: on-level and honors. Across all grades, we use a blend of learning elements to accommodate multiple learning styles and maximize both the quality of lessons and the way they are delivered.

We establish learning objectives and thoroughly develop instructional online experiences with animations, interactive games, video, and text. In K—5, we also carefully integrate the online experience with plenty of hands-on materials activities. Please check with your school about offline course materials. Problem-centered curriculum design has been shown to increase the relevance of the curriculum and encourages creativity, innovation and collaboration in the classroom.

By considering all three models of curriculum design before they begin planning, instructors can choose the model that is best suited to both their students and their course. An effective course plan will highlight your proposed curriculum for the semester along with your individual lesson plans.

Developing an engaging course plan means considering how learning occurs before, during and after your class. Here are some factors to consider. A thoughtful course plan is an essential piece of the instructional design process. Not only does it help you track progress towards your learning objectives, it ensures lectures are balanced with adequate opportunities for reflection, application of knowledge and community building. Here are a few questions to ask yourself pertaining to your learning objectives, assessments and course content.

These steps and questions are only just the tip of the iceberg. Depending on the curriculum model, educators must make a concerted effort to design and deliver content that strengthens a sense of belonging, participation and performance in and out of class. Developing, designing and implementing an education curriculum is no easy task—especially with online learning.

But by following the fundamental guidelines and framework of curriculum development, educators will be setting themselves—and their students—up for long-term success. Join more than 10, educators. Get articles with higher ed trends, teaching tips and expert advice delivered straight to your inbox.

Interested in joining the Top Hat team? View our Current Openings. Amanda Stutt. Every curriculum must have an education philosophy. Aims must be linked to the country education philosophy. Every curriculum is aimed at developing in the learners certain. The curriculum process must identify. Or can the content be made interesting to learners? Selecting Learning Experiences:. Learning experience must be related to the stated goals of the curriculum.

Suitability: learning experiences must be suitable to the learners' present state of learning and characteristics. Stages of curriculum Development:. Input, Process and Output:.

I can say that the idiom Input refers to the syllabus, the item Process refers to the methodology and the item Output refers to the learning outcomes.

Curriculum Development Techniques:. Make a free website with Yola. This may mean covering material that will be assessed by standardized tests, requiring you to incorporate product-focused curricular elements. Or it may mean including certain types of course objectives. Long waits for development experts. Your institution may have trained curriculum experts on staff to help professors with course development. Unfortunately, there is usually a much higher demand than these small teams have the capacity for, leading to long wait times.

Gathering relevant required materials. Once the curriculum is mostly outlined, instructors will need to search for the right required materials to align with course objectives. Often, it's difficult and sometimes impossible to find an option that is affordable for students and works well for your course. This is too often the case with both textbooks and e-textbooks from traditional publishers, but new options like custom digital course materials can alleviate these concerns.

Between the many challenges and the complex steps involved, many instructors may feel they aren't up to the task of developing an effective curriculum on their own. In this case, an expert course content creator could help simplify and streamline the process. Earlier, we listed the different course design models you're likely to come across. We'll now walk through each of them in greater depth so you can understand what they are and how you might apply them to your course. This model emphasizes the specific skills and knowledge associated with a subject area.

Most kinds of widely standardized curriculum fall under the subject-centered approach. It's the most common approach used throughout K schools in the U. S, but it's also found throughout college classrooms, especially in large level lecture classes. When you hear the term "core curriculum," it's referring to a subject-centered approach.

While this model intends to create equal learning experience across different schools and classes, it doesn't always work out that way in practice. Because this approach is not student-centered, it can lead to a lack of engagement and potentially lower performance.

Additionally, this approach leaves little room for cross-subject connections. Example: If you're teaching an introductory European history course, a subject-centered curriculum may include covering the details and key players of major wars. This approach aims to provide students with relevant real-world skills. Learners are taught how to look at a problem and come to a solution. Some benefits of this approach are an increased emphasis on critical thinking, a focus on collaboration, and more innovation in the classroom.

Students still learn key skills and knowledge, but with additional context. Example: A problem-centered approach to teaching a public relations course might involve tasking a group of students with assessing a real business's PR strategy and developing an actionable campaign. Learner-centered design emphasizes the needs and goals of each learner as an individual. With this approach, you'll analyze the preexisting knowledge and learning styles of your students.

The needs of your learners will guide your curriculum development process. Generally, this type of curriculum development aligns most closely with a process-focused curriculum. Example: One way to incorporate learner-centered design into your curriculum is by inviting students to fill out a pre-course survey to see what they already know about your subject and what areas they are most interested in learning. This can be especially beneficial for upper-level courses—hopefully, students are coming in with a solid foundation of knowledge, but a learner-centered approach uses data rather than assumptions to determine curricular goals.

For a comprehensive curriculum that strikes an ideal balance for your course, learners, and subject area, you'll want to include elements from each of these models. A fully customized and comprehensive approach to curriculum design will yield the best results for your course over time.