The excellent Informal Education web site is a good place to start. It is not HE specific, but brings in some of the key curriculum thinkers, and can effectively be used in considering HE. 

Curriculum Models :

A piece about outcome-based curriculum in Australia - the introduction and the bibliography are useful. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/000000860.htm

Considers some aspects of curriculum related to informal learning and the hidden curriculum - useful bibliography. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00001361.htm

Curriculum Quick Guide 'Will provide you with instant access to a mini library of useful and relevant information helping you to keep abreast of the changes that affect your role as a teacher and administrator It will also assist you to incorporate good practice to support and enhance your teaching.' This is actually about Key Stage 4, but it is useful. From the LSDA. Download (pdf 164k)

Curriculum Theory and Practice - a nice piece from the excellent informal education web site at

http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-curric.htm

Key issues in the deployment of teaching staff in FE (2005) Fiona Neathey. This report brings together research conducted on behalf of the LSDA by the Institute for Employment Studies. The study aimed to investigate the most effective and efficient ways for colleges to organise the curriculum, in order to maximise the benefits to learners, while minimising teaching and administration workloads on teachers. download (pdf 448k)

Managing Curriculum Change (LSDA)

Change management involves many factors: quality, resources, staff, students and funding, to name but a few. But above all, it is about processes - how to get where you want to be. Based on research carried out in three centres, Managing curriculum change looks at successful strategies that can be adopted to improve change management in your institution.

Download (pdf 120k)

Tyler R (1949) Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. A good summary of the model (still widely referred to) at http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~daniel_schugurensky/assignment1/1949tyler.html

Curriculum Development, Design and Context

A Guide for Busy Academics Using Learning Outcomes to Design a Course and Assess Learning

HE teachers are expected to be able to show how:

• the educational outcomes for a programme and learning outcomes for a module are being achieved; 
• that the assessment methods used are appropriate to test the achievement of the intended outcomes; 
• and that the criteria used to judge achievement are aligned to the intended learning outcomes.

Aligning the Curriculum to promote good learning

This paper was prepared for the Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN) Generic Centre, Imaginative Curriculum Symposium, held in London on November 4th 2002. It promotes the notion of 'constructive alignment' as follows:

Teaching and learning take place in a whole system, embracing classroom, department and institutional levels.

In a poor system, the components (curriculum, teaching and assessment tasks) are not necessarily integrated and tuned to support learning, so that only 'academic' students spontaneously use higher-order learning processes.

In an integrated system, all aspects of teaching and assessment are tuned to support high level learning.

Constructive Alignment (CA) is such a system. It is an approach to curriculum design that optimises the conditions for quality learning download here

Contexts for Curriculum Design : working with external pressures.

Many external pressures are attempting to influence higher education; goal posts are constantly being moved. Curriculum design cannot be a cosy self-contained activity between consenting colleagues. Continuous environmental scanning assumes enormous importance as does some ability to anticipate changes in the future - otherwise curriculum design can become a very frequent and perhaps tedious and reactive process of 'back to the drawing board'. This guide provides advice on how to manage the effects of the external pressures on other aspects of the curriculum (e.g. learning outcomes, teaching & learning strategy, assessment). download here

Activity

When you've read some or all of the content above, and any items of your own choice, carry out your own mini curriculum audit by asking these questions:

What are the key internal and external influences on your curriculum?

How do you and your colleagues go about developing the curriculum in:

- Your own subject?

- Your group of subjects?

- Your Department or School?

What factors within the curriculum do you feel you have autonomy with, and some degree of influence and control over?

Bigger Picture Questions

Should the curriculum aim to develop vocational skills, academic knowledge, or rounded human beings as citizens? Are the two things compatible?

Is there a particular curriculum development in your field which is prominent at present? What are its strengths and weaknesses ?

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