William didn’t understand what the big deal was. He just needed to take the advanced course without first completing the introductory course, which he didn’t need anyway. William’s advanced high school education had already covered the subject’s introductory material. Having already reviewed the advanced course’s syllabus and book, William had no doubt that he could handle the advanced course without first completing the introductory course. And the advanced course fit his schedule perfectly, whereas he’d have to stay in town and on campus an extra day every week if he took the introductory course. William didn’t understand why the registrar insisted that the college’s curriculum committee would first have to approve.
Definition
Schools must organize their instructional programs. They do so through a curriculum, which simply means the prescribed course of study to accomplish the instructional objectives. A school curriculum is itself a wonderfully rich and complex entity. A curriculum attempts to chart across the school’s program 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, a school’s curriculum is also an important tool for accomplishing the school’s mission. A poorly designed or implemented curriculum can leave significant gaps in an education and waste 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.
Courses
Students know that they must complete a bunch of courses to advance through their instructional programs. A curriculum places those courses in a sensible sequence to enable students to build a knowledge and skill base. Schools implement their curriculum through courses. The course is the basic unit of instruction, stretching across a term and measured in credits based on the hours spent in the course. 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 or degree have all the subject-area knowledge and relevant skills that the diploma or degree represent. What one course omits, another course must cover. Courses should also reinforce rather than duplicate instruction. A well-designed course catalog around a sound curriculum is a beautiful thing.
Registrar
A school’s registrar 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. For a school, a well-designed course catalog around a sound curriculum, with student enrollment managed by a skilled registrar, is the beating heart of a school’s instructional program.
Alterations
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.
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.
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.
Innovation
Curriculum committees are also important to school 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.
Assessment
Assessment, like innovation, is also important to a school’s curriculum. Schools assess students to ensure that they meet program 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.
Appeals
Curriculum committees may also have institutional responsibility to act on student appeals of adverse decisions by school staff members, directors, associate deans, or others on how to interpret and apply curriculum requirements to any one student’s specific situation. If a professor 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.
Reflection
Are you familiar with your school’s curriculum? Can you find your school’s curriculum published in writing? Is your school’s curriculum available to the public? Is your school’s curriculum standardized or does it instead offer multiple options? Does your school’s curriculum effectively balance core requirements against program options and variety? 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 and administrative representation? Is your school’s curriculum committee adequately serving as a hub for faculty and administration 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 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 students.
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.