CUIN 540 Theory and Practice in Curriculum Development – 3 hours credit: This course is a blend of curriculum theory and practice. Understanding both is necessary to make sense of fundamental curriculum relationships and establish a framework to place specific instances in perspective. The curriculum’s basic principles are included, applied, and adapted if necessary to a variety of settings.
Grading status: Letter grade.
Learner Outcomes
Upon completing this course, students will be able to:
- Identify and interpret factors influencing curriculum planning, development, implementation, and evaluation of the learning environment.
- Write a rationale for the selection of curricula materials for a given program and student population.
- Identify at least three curriculum perspectives and compare their strengths and limitations concerning a district or school program she/ he is familiar with.
- Define subject-centered, learner-centered, teacher-centered, and society-centered conceptions of curriculum, and describe their impact on instructional decision making in the classroom.
- Make a critical analysis of the process of curriculum change in a given state, district or school to highlight strengths and limitations and suggest lines of improvement.
- Use theories of curriculum evaluation to write a rubric for assessing learning outcomes of a familiar district, state, or school curriculum unit or program
- identify the underlying assumptions and features of different conceptions of curriculum and appraise various models of curriculum design, development, and evaluation;
- Analyze the forms of curriculum organization related to educational practice and explain the theoretical constructs that underlie school and classroom curriculum practices.
- Use curriculum planning and development theories to design a curriculum unit to be implemented in a familiar state, district, or school program.