Characteristics of curriculum design

So what are the most important characteristics of curriculum design for UK Higher Education? Here are some thoughts:

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Curriculum design should be fit for purpose:

• developing students' professional identity;
• covering threshold concepts;
• being inclusive and accessible to all;
• encouraging student participation;
• timeliness;
• capacity to cope with the rate of change.

Curriculum design is influenced by:

• definitions of curriculum which are conceptual, or political and social - consider:
  • The approach to curriculum design taken by the University of West Scotland;
  • The 6-step approach suggested by the National University of Singapore.
• external pressures such as:
  • Government agenda;
  • Professional bodies;
  • Quality Assurance Agency;
  • League tables/National Student Survey;
  • Subject benchmarks.
• institutional rules and regulations including the academic year and assessment regulations;
• values and ideologies, eg ethics and institutional goals such as Ecoversity;
• disciplinary traditions, eg the work of Toohey.

Curriculum design is a process led by institutional procedures including:

• University of Bradford's approvals process and programme monitoring and review (cf University of Reading's Pathfinder Framework);
• document format and preparation;
• roles and responsibilities;
• policy development.

Curriculum design should be based on underlying principles and evidence:

Current models include:

• Jenny Moon's model of module development;
• Biggs' constructive alignment;
• problem based learning and enquiry based learning;
• team based learning;
• resource based eg Open Educational Resources.

Curriculum design may be changing:

For example:

• accelerated - Carpe Diem, University of Leicester;
• more flexible - Escalate;
• technology support - JISC eTutor project;
• programme focused rather than module focused - PASS Programme Assessment Strategies

Page last modified: Tuesday, March 20, 2012