College Curriculum

College Curriculum

1. Curriculum: an Academic Plan

   • Constructed for a single lesson, single course, a program or major, and for a college or university
   • Includes eight elements
     • Purposes, content, sequence, learners, instructional processes, instructional resources, evaluation, adjustment
   • Purpose: foster students' academic development, should be designed with a given group of students and learning objectives in mind
   • Advantages
     • Promotes clarity about influences on the curriculum
     • Guides planning at the lesson, course, program, and college levels
     • Offers a dynamic view of curriculum development

2. External Influences: Sociocultural Context

   • The model of AP gives the variety of influences active in the sociocultural environment for education at any given time
   • Enhance the understanding of how the external influences affect curriculum planning
   • Encouraged colleges and universities to expand access
   • Balance attention to general and specialized education
   • Increased student access and student choice
   • Academic decisions become more visible

3. Internal Influences: College and University Contexts

   • Institutional influences
     • Most 4-year institutions emphasize research, teaching, and service
     • Financial and human resources play a big role in curricular decisions
   • Governance: Administrative and Board Rules
     • Not really involved in academic decision, more likely involved in fundraising and making connections
   • Missions, leadership styles, institutional resources, department cultures, and student characteristics can affect AP develop

4. Internal Influences: Academic Fields

   • Characterizing academic fields
     • Humanities
     • Social sciences
     • sciences
     • Professional fields
   • Faculty needs to agree on important learning outcomes for students
   • Deliberate designs that maximize linkages within and among the fields lead to greater coherence and integration in course and program plans

5. Creating academic plans

   • Created at several levels: course, program, and college
     • Faculty role
     • Course level: usually the task of a single individual
   • Faculty create a new AP to accommodate the needs of particular group of students
   • Should be created based on 8 elements: purposes, content, sequence, learners, instructional processes, instructional resources, evaluation, adjustment

6. Learners

   • Center of everything
   • Learner influences:
     • Preparation and ability
     • Goals and interests
     • Approach to learning
     • Styles and strategies
     • Subject matter of learning
   • accommodating characteristics, goals, and abilities of learners

7. Instructional Processes

   • Discussions
   • Case studies, simulations and role-plays
   • Collaborative and cooperative learning
   • Peer teaching
   • Purpose: To make the curriculum more engaging and appealing
   • developing learning and teaching activities

8. Evaluating and adjusting academic plans

   • evaluations of specific course and program plans provide information that faculty members use to make adjustments
   • evaluations of the overall college and university curriculum if needed adjustments in academic plans
   • Purpose: To improve academic plans, and this will help the students as well
   • Student opinions and achievement matter
   • assessing student outcomes as well as learner and teacher satisfiscation with the plan
   • improving both the plan and the planning process

9. Purposes

   • choosing educational goals and objectives
   • The purpose varies and it depends on the course
   • Who is the target

10. Content and sequence

    • CONTENT: selecting subject matter
      • desired learning outcomes
      • subject matter selected to convey specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes
    • SEQUENCE: organizing content appropiately
      • subject matter is arranged to facilitate learning in an AP
      • an arrangement of the subject matter and experiences intended to lead to specific outcomes for learners