Curriculum and Instruction in Education

The field of curriculum and instruction is a growing and evolving one. It’s a dynamic, hands-on profession that transforms the landscape of education.

A well-conceived curriculum is a blueprint that realises educational objectives. It also gives teachers, students, and school administrators a quantifiable strategy for academic success. A curriculum’s product component includes the content that teachers teach, while its process component encompasses instructional methods.

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Goals

Education professionals use the curriculum as a tool to achieve educational goals. The goals may be based on national standards, state standards or a school's academic objectives. The goal of curriculum is to provide meaningful learning experiences that are culturally sustaining and developmentally appropriate. It also reflects what is known about young children and the community in which they live.

The measurable goals within a curriculum can be described in terms of what students should learn, produce or accomplish through a particular learning experience. These objectives should be clear and specific, and they should reflect the scope of a particular course or grade level.

A quality curriculum is a framework that outlines the educational process and sets academic expectations for teachers. It also provides a structure for teaching best practices. The resulting knowledge is useful for improving student performance and teacher accountability. Educators who specialize in curriculum and instruction work to create effective learning experiences for all students.

Methods

The methods that teachers use to deliver education play a major role in how students learn. One method is lecture, which is a teacher-centered approach to learning where students listen to precise instructions for each class. This model may cultivate listening skills in students and encourage note-taking proficiency, but it limits the opportunities for hands-on learning or questions that could help deepen knowledge.

In contrast, hand-on learning uses student-centered teaching techniques to give students the chance to develop their own understanding through practical experience. It can take many forms, including projects and experiments that mimic chemical reactions or theatrical performances of Shakespeare's plays.

Educators also modify curriculum to reflect cultural values or changes in academic research. This requires a solid understanding of the field and its changing nature, which is why earning a master's degree in curriculum and instruction can be a valuable career step. This degree can help students to research new educational materials, strategies and tools for their teaching.

Materials

Whether in textbook, handout, manual, pamphlet or assignment file format, instructional materials are the resources teachers use to meet course-based learning goals and objectives. Curriculum materials also include educational software, such as learn-to-type programs or language learning apps, graphic design applications and industry created curricular content like videos and infographics.

Educators need to understand how and why these curricular resources work, and they should regularly be offered professional learning that highlights why high-quality curriculum matters, how to recognize the hallmarks of excellent curricular materials and how to leverage curricular resources in their classrooms. This is especially important given that a large percentage of teachers lack access to curriculum-related professional learning, even when their districts have carefully selected and improved curricular resources for them. The CMC policy should identify collection goals and objectives in conjunction with the education faculty, and clearly state the criteria for collecting materials. The policies should also articulate selection tools and processes, as well as balance the collection across grades, subject areas and reading levels.

Assessment

The concepts of curriculum, instruction and assessment are closely related. They have a cyclic relationship whereby assessment determines the relevance of a curriculum and instructional activities to achieving the educational goals, aims and objectives of a country.

For example, low-stakes quizzes can be both formative assessments for learning and summative assessments of progress. Similarly, activities like research papers that are graded with rubrics contain both the learning activity and the assessment.

To be useful, assessments must clearly match the content and nature of thinking expected in class. They must also provide ongoing measures using more than one method and be aligned with course learning outcomes.

Unfortunately, most large-scale state assessments designed for accountability are geared toward ranking students rather than signaling instructional change. To be meaningful, these types of assessments must be followed by helpful corrective instruction. Ideally, this instruction should be designed to help students regain their skills and understanding of the subject matter.

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