7 What Is a Curriculum?

David was fine teaching his own subject. From years of experience, he knew what students needed to learn. David even knew the harder topics and how to help students comprehend and retain them. David was also comfortable deploying a variety of teaching techniques and approaches. He felt that he had a relatively keen sense of the differences among students and how those differences invited different instructional methods. The one thing David didn’t appreciate, though, was curriculum planning. Indeed, David winced every time he heard the word curriculum, knowing that it meant he might have to adjust the topics on which he instructed. David knew he had a bad attitude about curriculum mapping. He just tried not to express it too often or too harshly. 

Definition

Schools must organize their instructional programs to achieve their broad goals. A curriculum helps a school do so. A curriculum is a school’s prescribed course of study, that which a student must complete to graduate. A curriculum charts the progression of subjects that students must study and skills they must acquire, including options they may choose, to earn the culminating diploma or degree they seek. While the quality of instruction is key to school outcomes, the curriculum is also an important tool for accomplishing the school’s mission. A poorly designed or implemented curriculum can leave gaps in an education, while wasting substantial time and resources on duplicative or irrelevant instruction. Schools need wise curriculum directors and can put substantial time into curriculum mapping, study, and reform, to ensure the integrity of the instructional program. Respect your school’s curriculum design and process. The curriculum is the foundation for your instruction. 

Courses

Teachers teach courses, not just students, classes, units, and topics. A course is a series of classes spread across a semester or term, instructing in a certain subject, usually worth from one to three credits toward the degree, diploma, or other credential. A curriculum places courses in a sensible sequence to enable students to build a knowledge and skill base. The course is the basic unit of instruction. Courses generally relate either to a subject such as social studies, art, geology, or literature, or to a skill such as writing, counseling, debate, surgery, or other forms of practice. The curriculum maps those subjects and skills across all courses, to ensure that students earning a diploma, degree, or other credential have acquired the subject-matter knowledge and relevant skills that the credential represents. What one course omits, another course must cover. Courses should also reinforce rather than duplicate instruction. A well-designed course sequence forming a sound curriculum is a beautiful thing. 

Registrar

Teachers are responsible to the school’s registrar or registration function for certifying their students’ completion of courses. A school’s registrar, or the other school official performing the registration function, is more than an administrative support staff member. A registrar certifies to the graduating student and the school, faculty, alumni, other schools to which the student may apply for further education, licensing bodies, and employers that the student has met all curriculum requirements to graduate. A school’s registrar also closely regulates enrollment in courses and monitors progress through the curriculum toward graduation, to ensure orderly completion of required courses. A registrar would not, for instance, generally permit a student to take courses out of order or to skip required courses, substituting elective courses for them. For a school, a well-designed course sequence forming a sound curriculum, with student enrollment managed by a skilled registrar, is the beating heart of a school’s instructional program. 

Alterations

You should appreciate your school’s registrar or registration function, in ensuring that you teach only students whose prior education prepares them to do well in your course. Schools must generally take seriously any request to alter the curriculum to fit the needs, interests, or preferences of individual students or small groups of students. Taking courses out of order may undermine instruction by leaving students without a necessary knowledge or skill base. You can’t teach a student to run until the student knows how to walk. Students may out of schedule preferences or needs, or for other reasons, ask to take courses out of order. Schools typically designate a school official to receive and evaluate such requests, such as the registrar or a dean of students or faculty. Approving an alteration to the curriculum is no small thing, given that the curriculum ensures comprehensive learning, qualification for the diploma or degree, and every other privilege that goes with program graduation. Student requests for curriculum relief generally go before the faculty committee that reviews and revises the curriculum. Relief may be infrequent. As an instructor, you should generally hope so. You wouldn’t want to teach unprepared students.

Options

A school’s curriculum may be more or less complex, depending on the school’s level, mission, student body, and goals. A curriculum at an elementary school or middle school may have no or virtually no options. A high school curriculum may also be relatively standard with few options, mostly around electives like band, choir, art, theater, athletics, and vocational training. The undergraduate curriculum at a small college may also have core requirements for all students but, beyond the core, offer significant choices in elective courses and even in majors and minors, and perhaps also in degrees. The curriculum at a major university may by contrast be extraordinarily varied in both undergraduate and graduate programs, offering dozens of different major and minor programs in several different schools or colleges, and several different associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. Schools must balance the number of curriculum options against the associated costs. Many degree programs, each with small enrollment and class size, and each with their own specialist faculty, can create significant cost-structure issues for a university. You may want to teach only your niche subject. But your school may need you to teach other subjects that satisfy curriculum needs for larger numbers of students. Respect your school’s curriculum demands. They keep you employed. 

Committee

Schools typically design, maintain, and revise their curriculum through a faculty committee, on which administrators will also participate to address cost, facility, and other operational issues. Faculty expertise in curriculum design is essential to ensure that the curriculum satisfies subject-matter and skills requirements for each field in which the curriculum offers degrees. Curriculum committees determine which courses to require and which courses to treat as electives, the sequence in which students must take courses, how many credits to assign courses, and similar issues. Curriculum committees can also serve as a communication hub for faculty members and administrators as they together manage the school’s instructional program. A knowledgeable, skilled, and committed curriculum committee can ensure the integrity of a school’s instructional program. Participate on your curriculum committee if you have the opportunity. You will learn more about your school’s overall programs and the insights, preferences, and talents of your colleagues. 

Innovation

Curriculum committees can also contribute to academic innovation. Schools do not stand still. They instead respond to changes in society, professions, industries, business, technology, jobs, careers, government, and the workplace. Curriculum committees help schools stay current in how they equip students to navigate social, economic, political, technological, and other changes. New courses are, for instance, one way in which schools innovate. Curriculum committees approve new courses and course designs, typically with a review of the proposed syllabus advocated by the instructor who hopes to teach the new course. Curriculum committees may also approve new majors, minors, and degree programs. Curriculum committees may also deal with proposals for distance education, remote instruction, asynchronous instruction, and other uses of technology altering traditional on-campus, in-classroom instruction. In doing so, curriculum committee members must stay current on accreditation requirements and may be key school advocates in accreditation reviews and accreditor site visits. Again, support and respect your school’s curriculum committee and its members. They play a vital role in your school’s currency and innovation. 

Assessment

Assessment, like innovation, is also important to a school’s curriculum. Schools assess students to ensure that they meet curriculum requirements. Schools also assess instructors to ensure that their instruction is sound, skilled, and rigorous. Yet schools also assess their curriculum to ensure that it is producing graduates with comprehensive knowledge and current skills. Curriculum mapping and analysis may show gaps to fill and duplication to eliminate. See the example curriculum map in the appendix at the back of this guide. Study of student performance in courses and in areas across courses may show the need for instructional enhancement or reform to assure and strengthen student competence, character, and skills. Study of instructional delivery through the curriculum may show opportunities to decrease costs, increase access, and improve program quality. Accreditors may also require curriculum assessment to meet accreditation standards. Participate in your school’s curriculum assessment. Doing so will give you a greater appreciation for what your school is trying to accomplish for its graduates. 

Appeals

Curriculum committees may also have institutional responsibility to act on student appeals of adverse decisions by teachers, advisors, directors, associate deans, or others on how to interpret and apply curriculum requirements to any one student’s specific situation. If, on the other hand, a teacher proposing a new course or college dean proposing a new program wishes to challenge a curriculum committee decision, the appeal may go to the faculty senate or to an academic provost or school president or dean. If a student wishes to appeal a grade in a course, the school will generally have a grade-appeals process with a grade-appeals committee to decide the appeal. Participate in your school’s procedures addressing the soundness and equity of its curriculum features. Doing so shows your dedication to students, their learning, and your school and its staff members and program. 

Reflection

How familiar are you with your school’s curriculum? Is your school’s curriculum available to the public? Is your school’s curriculum largely standardized or does it instead offer multiple tracks and course options? Does your school’s curriculum effectively balance core requirements against course options and variety? Does your school’s curriculum allow you to teach courses that you believe are appropriate for student growth and development? How often does your school’s curriculum committee meet? Who are your school’s curriculum committee members? Does your school’s curriculum committee have adequate faculty representation? Does your department have curriculum committee representation? Does the curriculum committee know how your courses and subjects help students meet benchmarks and standards? Is your school’s curriculum committee adequately serving as a hub for faculty communication? Is your school’s curriculum sound and up to date, meeting student needs for comprehensive knowledge and current skills? Does your school’s curriculum committee foster, encourage, and support new courses, new forms of instructional delivery, and other teaching innovation? 

Key Points

• A curriculum identifies courses a student must complete to graduate.

• A curriculum ensures that schools teach required knowledge and skills.

• The school’s registrar certifies a student’s curriculum completion.

• Schools generally do not alter their curriculum for individual teachers.

• Curriculum options are prevalent in higher education.

• Faculty curriculum committees design, review, and revise curricula.

• Curriculum committees ensure sound curriculum innovations.

• Curriculum committees also assess curriculum performance.

• Students appeal curriculum issues to the curriculum committee.

Read Chapter 8.