Our Approach

Curriculum projects are exciting and transformative; they are also complex and time intensive. The most successful curriculum (re)designs attend not only to what is being changed (i.e., the curriculum itself) but also to how the change is brought about (i.e., the process). The CTE’s approach flexibly combines principles of curriculum design and complex group change to adapt to each unit’s context and needs.

Outcomes-Based Curriculum Design

Curricula are best designed by articulating the desired end result—what students will have learned by the time they finish—and working backwards to lead to that result. Taking time to articulate goals for student learning will ensure clear purpose and alignment of course requirements. 

Collaborative Design and Complex Group Change 

A curriculum belongs to a group of people, no doubt with different ideas about what it should look like. And any new curriculum will require people to teach and advise differently than they did before. The process of collaboratively developing a new curriculum and then sustaining the changes it requires will be most successful when approached with clear structure, consistent communication, and attention to the equitable participation of all stakeholders.

Our work is driven by five key design principles:

Equity

Emphasis on equitable experiences and outcomes for students, equitable participation in the design process for stakeholders, and explicit attention to equity in the curriculum itself

Purpose

Emphasis on purposeful and intentional design decisions, resulting in a clear and purposeful curriculum

Transparency

Including a design process that is transparent to all stakeholders and a resulting curriculum in which goals, requirements, and pathways are transparent to all students

Learning

Learning-centered emphasis in all curricular decisions, with the focus consistently on what students will learn and how they will achieve this learning

Alignment

Emphasis on alignment between overall goals for student learning, curricular pathways, course objectives, pedagogies, and assessment