Office of Academic Excellence

New Program Development Modules

This module is intended to provide you with an overview of the curriculum development process at the college. The information in this module should help you picture the process you will engage with in order to develop the curriculum in your credential.

Objectives:

1. Describe the curriculum development process and the roles of various stakeholders
2. Describe Outcomes-based Learning as an educational theory
3. Describe Backward Design and Alignment as a curriculum development strategy
4. Describe the requirements of your credential​

The purpose of this module is to get you thinking about the big picture: who are your graduates? The content in this module is designed to walk you through some thinking exercises about what knowledge, skills, and attitudes your graduates will need to have mastered in order to be successful in entry-to-practice level employment. By developing this understanding you are completing the first step in the Backward Design approach to curriculum development: beginning with the end in mind.

Objectives:

1. Understand your graduate's required knowledge and skills
2. Identify who should provide the information about your graduate's required knowledge and skills
3. Identify the career trajectory for your graduate and where your credential fits

This module is intended to introduce you to Program Vocational Learning Outcomes and the background information you will need to work with your Curriculum Specialist to develop or refine your PVLOs.  This information will make the work you do in "Meet-Up" 1 a more effective and efficient use of your face-to-face time.

Objectives:

1. Determine whether your program already has a set of PVLOs and where they are located
2. Identify the purpose of PVLOs
3. Assess the accuracy and relevancy of your PVLOs
4. Create new PVLOs

The information contained in these sections is brief and introductory in nature. It is intended as a first step to thinking more fully about these concepts. The college has a great many additional resources you can contact if you'd like to explore any of these areas more fully. You can contact your curriculum specialist to direct you to more resources at any time.

Objectives

1. Identify the Experiential Learning components of your program and how they support/enhance the curriculum.
2. Identify the components of a Universal Design for Learning approach to curriculum development and how you might integrate this into your courses.
3. Identify elements of your program curriculum and/or delivery methods that could be considered innovative.
4. Use the lenses of sustainability, anti-racism, internationalization, indigenization/decolonization, and digitization to reflect on your curriculum

This module is intended to help move you towards constructing your course-level learning outcomes and course descriptions, incorporating Essential Employability and Human Skills, and planning the structure and delivery method for your credential.  The work you’ll complete in this module will serve as the foundation for meet-up series 2 when you will complete a full set of courses (outcomes and descriptions) and a structure for program delivery.
Objectives:

1. Break down PVLOs into smaller components and identify themes
2. Describe the purpose and structure of a high-quality course learning outcome (CLO)
3. Describe how to write a high-quality course description
4. Identify the appropriate use of Essential Employability Skills/Human Skills and highlight important skills for your courses
5. Compare and contrast program delivery methods using the program delivery information form

This module is intended to help move you towards the development of an assessment framework for your credential. According to the HEQCO guide Learning Outcome's Assessment - A practitioner's handbook, "The assessment of program- or degree-level outcomes is an integral part of learning-centred education. It provides an ongoing mechanism for challenging assumptions about program effectiveness, identifying conflicting program elements and ensuring student learning objectives are met. It also allows for the continuous improvement of program goals and objectives over time" (p. 6).

The work you'll complete in this module will set the foundation for the evaluation of your course learning outcomes and student workload map (required for your NPAP form submission).

Developing your evaluation strategy will also set the boundaries for your content selection in Module 7.

Objectives: 

1. Identify key deliverables required by your graduates in entry to practice employment and their component parts.
2. Describe the outcomes-based assessment, constructive alignment, and authentic assessment.
3. Identify how UDL principles could apply to your assessment design and assessment policy.
4. Describe assessments vs. evaluations and formative vs. summative assessment and the role these may play in the assessment strategy of your credential.
5. Describe the purpose and process of assessment/workload mapping.

This module is intended to introduce you to some considerations regarding content and resource selection.  We will explore issues of copyright, open educational resources, UDL, and student considerations.

Seeing your program/course from the perspective of your students will help you make selections that truly enhance their learning experience without overloading their cognitive and time resources.

Objectives:

1. Describe your process for considering assigned materials for a) cost to students b) copyright requirements c) time demands on students.
2. Identify how your selected resources conform to a Universal Design for Learning approach and support access. 
3. Highlight available Open Educational Resources available for your courses.