Centre for Learning and Teaching

Stages of Curriculum Design

Download 'Stages of Curriculum Design' [PDF - 65 KB]

Ideally, a curriculum renewal or creation process would include all of the components listed below. However, the Senior Educational Developer (Curriculum) can work with you to design the best options to meet your department’s specific needs and schedule.

Stage I

  • Meet with the Senior Educational Developer, Curriculum (Centre for Learning and Teaching) to devise the best course of action for your program and establish the purpose of the process (e.g. curriculum renewal, curriculum design, program review, MPHEC proposal, accreditation, etc.)
  • Collect course outlines from faculty members
  • Determine how much time can be allotted to the curriculum renewal process. (Some programs can commit to a process that includes multiple retreats, while others prefer to work through a series of meetings and sub-committees depending on their timeline.)
  • Identify goals for the curriculum renewal process
  • Identify participants
  • Identify necessary resources (people, time, space, supplies, etc.)

Stage II

  • Schedule a retreat to begin the curriculum renewal process with interested participants.
  • Meet with the Senior Educational Developer, Curriculum to create an agenda for the retreat
  • Use course outlines to start identifying course-level learning outcomes
  • During the retreat determine: key concepts in the discipline, program-level outcomes, course-level objective
  • Meet with instructors to ensure the outcomes are accurate
  • Begin to fill out a mapping framework and confirm with instructors
  • Circulate mapping framework to all participants

Stage III

  • Schedule a second retreat to continue the process with interested participants.
  • Meet with Senior Educational Developer, Curriculum to review materials from Phase II and create an agenda for the second retreat
  • Begin completing the curriculum renewal framework
  • Meet with instructors to ensure on right track
  • During the retreat discuss: work completed in Phase II, assessment methods, teaching & learning methods, content
  • Circulate curriculum renewal framework to all participants
  • Schedule an opportunity to meet in-person to discuss outstanding information

Stage IV

  • Create a document that synthesizes the work completed during the curriculum renewal process
  • Circulate the document to all participants
  • Determine next steps based on the results of the curriculum renewal document, including an action plan and assessment strategy 

Ongoing

  • Assess the new program or the changes made to the existing program. Depending on the nature of the process this might occur annually, after two years of administering the new curriculum, after the first full-cycle of program delivery, or before the next program review.
  • Identify Scholarship of Teaching and Learning projects that could be developed from the curriculum creation and renewal process.