It is an early Monday morning just prior to the beginning of the semester. A faculty member walks into the institution where he teaches. He will be working on a curriculum project. He thinks through the steps to be completed.
- 50% of the content be new or requiring modification
- Curriculum Contract
- Selected Modality
- Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) exam
- Guideline/Documentation Checklist
- Curriculum Repository
- Learning Management System
- Peer Review
- Approval
The aforementioned checklist has multiple sub steps. Your institution may have a different process. I would bet, though, that your process has encumbrances that hinder your ability to provide current curriculum in a timely and cost-effective manner. If you were to flowchart the steps, would it look simple and easy or more like a Rorschach test?
The largest hurdle might simply be the speed at which knowledge advances. Consider the simple act of information exchange. If the amount of information exchanged electronically were converted to newspapers, each individual would receive approximately 55 newspapers in 1986 and 175 in 2007 (Hilbert, 2012).
I encourage you to do some reflection. Is your institutional processes a hindrance? What changes can be made to make you more effective as a faculty member/department? How often are you able to make changes? Are you using the waterfall-like ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) process? I would encourage you to look to Agile methodologies to improve the process – make it more efficient, less costly and more enjoyable.
Resources
- Agile in Education
- University curriculum development – stuck in a process and how to break free
- Leaving ADDIE for SAM
- Agile Faculty
References
Hilbert, M. (2012). How much information is there in the “information society”? Significance, 9(4), 8-12. doi:10.1111/j.1740-9713.2012.00584.x
