I have taught both on-ground and on-line and I have learned to know when a curriculum is not designed correctly and when it really hits the mark. At times competencies are sometimes not if the right order, activities don’t appear to be making the necessary linkages for the students and sometimes the pacing is just off. Luckily, where I work, we have the leisure of making accommodations as we feel are necessary as long as we teach the learning competencies or objectives.
We have a feedback loop where we debrief after we have taught each course. We discuss what went well, what did not go well, if we met our objectives, and what design recommendations we have to improve the product. I have helped curriculum design with restructuring and re-writing a curriculum. This seemed easy at the time because it was a curriculum I had taught many times. Now that I have taught the redesigned curriculum, I have more suggestions and know what is not working with the new design. I almost always have some suggestion to curriculum design after I complete a course. It’s real easy to identify what isn’t working and what changes need to be made. I hope I am up to the challenge of designing a course from the bottom up.
To date I have learned a few things about curriculum design which should be a good foundation for me to start with. I know that I first have to identify what it is that I want to teach – what are the objectives? I then have to break the objectives up into smaller parts that build on each other and follow a logical path and strategically flow. I need to decide how and when I will provide assessments and ways for the students to demonstrate their knowledge. I will need to develop discussion questions that meet the goals of demonstrating learning and stimulating conversation.
That is what I think I know at this point. There is a whole lot I don’t know and need to learn. My first question is where do I start? What do I do first and second? What do I do last? Can I really design a rubric that can guide students and assist me with fair and unbiased grading? I will need to consider different learning styles as I design the course and make sure that I am meeting everyone’s needs.
Yes, I am a bit intimidated. I knew how to learn and how to teach so the first two semesters where just increasing my knowledge base. This class will teach me new knowledge and skills and really stretch my imagination and planning abilities I am sure. So, I am also excited because I love to learn and I love to be challenged. Also this class and the next class are a path to help me achieve a goal that is important to me. I am glad to have the support of this class. I am sure that this support will help me to produce a higher quality product which in the long term has benefit to children who have experienced trauma.
