Curriculum Coherence
Regardless of theoretical orientation or practical perspective, curriculum writers emphasize the importance of curricular coherence. The concept is simple, hearkening back to Bruner and others before him,1 who called for revisiting important ideas again and again in order to deepen understanding and encourage transfer. At the university level, where we have major fields of study that encompass a collection of courses, we have the opportunity to design a coherent curriculum. Such a curriculum need not be sequential in the traditional sense. It might be problem-based or issues-based, with students making ever-deepening inquiries into central concepts and principles. We are in a position to craft a series of courses, in whatever form, that are carefully orchestrated to advance the essential knowledge and skills of our fields of study and allow students to broaden and deepen their understanding as they progress through them. The idea is simple, but the work is hard. There is a technique called curriculum mapping (Jacobs, 1997) that might be helpful in such an endeavor. It has been used successfully in the development of curricular scope-and-sequences in K-12 settings, but again it is a concept that has relevance for higher education. The technique is relatively straightforward, first involving the identification of the content and skills taught in each course at each level. A calendar-based chart, or “map,” is created for each course so that it is easy to see not only what is taught in a course, but when it is taught. Examination of these maps can reveal both gaps in what is taught and repetition among courses, but its value lies in identifying areas for integration and concepts for spiraling. What are students taking at the same time in different courses? Are there ways to integrate the content to enlarge understanding? What do students take at one level that is repeated at the next? Are there ways to spiral conceptual understanding and skill development? For the past year, the Education Department has been working on increasing the coherency of its curriculum, and using a process similar to curriculum mapping to do so. We have engaged in departmental “conversations” on the first Friday of each month to discuss course goals, content, and assignments. It has been an eye-opening exercise and, yes, hard work, as we have tried to articulate the essential knowledge and skills of teacher education and our own assumptions and values that frame them. We have examined our course content, our required assignments, and our class activities to consider the alignment of courses typically taken during the same semester (horizontal alignment) and those taken in sequence (vertical alignment). We have drawn diagrams and made charts; we have listed and sorted; we have agreed and disagreed. Progress clearly has been made in reducing redundancy and discarding topics that do not contribute to what we have determined to be our essential knowledge and skills, but after a year, we are still not finished. We look forward to the university-wide discussion of academic challenge as a way of extending and informing our continued conversations.
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