Designing Compelling Curricula

The creation of curricula that doesn't just interest your students, but engages them as well, can be a challenge for many instructors. It is often tempting to simply attempt to "pour" information into the heads of the students, but educational research has shown that the application of information is one of the most valuable learning tools. It's also easier in most cases to recycle existing curricula rather than creating your own.

When given the opportunity to develop their own curricula, many teachers and professors take the easy way out, and devise lectures, power points and reading assignments. However, a large amount of research has been done showing that simply giving the information to students is not sufficient. The students must also have the opportunity to apply the information they are given.
One of the most effective ways of helping students to apply their knowledge is to have them discuss aspects of the information in class or via chat boards in online classes. For example, in a class on feminism, a discussion about how women in the 1890s would have impacted the political process without the vote would be a good followup to a presentation about suffrage.

Another option would be having the class work in groups on a project. Using the previous example again, having the students work in groups to write biographies of the men and women involved in the first wave of feminism would help them to absorb the information they have learned.

Additionally, teachers often rely on items created by other educators. While this is unavoidable in some cases, it is better to use other peoples' work as a jumping off point, rather than using it whole cloth.

Of course, time is often a factor in the creation of any curricula. When time is short, its easier to go with simple lesson plans and to pull from other educators' work. That's why its extremely important to give yourself adequate time to develop any kind of lesson plan.

Bouncing your newly designed curricula off people who are not going to be taking the class, but who understand the topic, is a great way to determine if you have met your goals. Of course, it helps if you have different kinds of learners (visual, audio, kinestec) to consider your plans, to ensure that you are accurately meeting the needs of more than one learning type.