How do you design a curriculum for higher educational institution??
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There are three basic types of curriculum design:
Subject-centred design: Subject-centred curriculum design, as the name suggests, mainly focuses on a particular subject. A curriculum designed for maths, which covers all the necessary skills and knowledge a learner should acquire while in their K-12 course come under this category. This particular curriculum design revolves more around the subject rather than the individual.
Learner-centred design: Learner-centred(, or learner-centric) curriculum design focuses on the learner. It tends to address the needs, interests, and goals of each individual learners. Its based on the realisation that each students are unique and should not be subjected to a standardised curriculum. This type of curriculum design is supposed to empower the learners and allow them to shape their education through choices.
Problem-centered design: Like what we saw at the learner-centered design, the problem-centered design also focuses on the learner, in an student-centric manner. The problem-centered design focuses on teaching students how to acknowledge a real-life problem and come up with a solution of their own, to solve it.
Tips for planning a curriculum
1. Analyse the key factors.
Take time and figure out why you are doing this, and for whom. This will help you categorise what kind of curriculum design you want. Make sure you have all the necessary information, including the desired goals, resources, learners’ interests, teachers’ interests, course details etc. These will act as a base upon which you can begin building the design.
2. Make use of various learning theories and taxonomies
You can add strength to your design by employing different teaching-learning methodologies including learning theories like OBE, SCL, ICT-enabled education, and learning taxonomies like the bloom’s taxonomy.
3. Make room for the data in your design
Make sure your curriculum is ‘data-friendly’. Assessments and feedbacks must weigh in to test the effectiveness of your curriculum every now and then. So your design should be strong enough so that it does not break apart when big data comes.
Data is at the centre of all assessments and academics. There’s no way you are ever going to get around it. So the best option is to acknowledge it and make the best of it.
4. Create the design for the stakeholders
Make a list of the key stakeholders in the education, and split them into a couple of groups. You could easily visualise the key metrics and characteristics of each stakeholders this way. Your curriculum design would reflect that too. That’s how you know your design is good.
It must answer the stakeholders questions and concerns. Moreover, it should also help them achieve their individual goals. A great curriculum doesn’t just concerns itself with the students. It spans out to make an impact to lives of all the key stakeholders.
5. Adapting a curriculum may not be very effective.
There are a diverse set of factors including learner’s mindset, learning skills, environment, supporting factors etc.
Cultural sensitivity does not come in a package, and pre-packaged curriculum undermines teachers’ professionalism and agency. There may not be any room for freedom and individual pursuits inside such a curriculum.
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