Click here to view the video transcript
There can be a lot of tension over shared curriculum, especially if instructors feel they’re not valued, or they’re considered incompetent by the administration or other experienced instructors even. I know I have felt that way. Remembering that shared curriculum has two user groups that are equally important and that instructor users need to have the space to make the course their own in some way, shape or form, can lead to an ideal shared curriculum experience.
Creating curriculum to reduce the workload of an already overworked teaching population in a way that also lets them keep a certain level of autonomy over how they deliver the course leads to positive teaching and learning experiences. Shared curriculum can and should come from a place of let’s work together to make this better, and providing course maps, instructor manuals can help send that message of support. I hope you enjoyed the course.
Thank you so much for sticking with us this far. Don’t forget that at every lesson you can engage in the discussion and we can’t wait to see you there.
- When designing shared curriculum, we need to consider instructors as users in the same way we consider students to be users.
- When developing shared curriculum, it’s important to leave and identify the spaces for instructors to insert their own expertise. Course maps and instructor manuals are the best place to start.
- No matter how little instructors are allowed to change, the communication channels with students are excellent places to personalize a course. Instructors benefit from guidance on where those opportunities are and what type of content they might include.
Thank you for taking this ‘Shared Curriculum: Designing for Others to Use’ course which has been developed with Catrina Mitchum and Shelley Rodrigo. We hope you have enjoyed it. Remember to mark this lesson as ‘Mark Complete’ to earn your Course Completion Badge.
Further Reading and References
Mitchum, C. (2023). Promoting instructor agency & autonomy with pre-designed courses. In J. Borgman and C. McArdle (Eds.), PARS for writing programs (pp. 208-223). WAC Clearinghouse.
Kendall Theado, C., NeCamp, S. (2021). Working with and against Shared Curricula. Perspectives from College Writing Teachers and Administrators. New York, United States of America: Peter Lang Verlag. Working With and Against Shared Curricula: Perspectives from College Writing Teachers and Administrators (pp. 29-44).
Penrose, A. M. (2012). Professional identity in a contingent-labor profession: Expertise, autonomy, community in composition teaching. WPA: Writing Program Administration, 35(2), 108–126.
Rodrigo, R. & Ramirez, C. (2017). Balancing institutional demands with effective practice: A lesson in curricular & professional development. Technical Communication Quarterly, 26(3), 314-328.
Troop, M., White, D., Wilson, K. E., & Zeni, P. (2020). The user experience design for learning (UXDL) Framework: The undergraduate student perspective. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 11(3).
Tseptsura, M., & Rodrigo, R. (2024). FAQ: Developing & maintaining shared curriculum. Writing Program Administrator Journal, 48(1), 30-46.
Discussions
What was your takeaway from this course?
Please share your thoughts and questions in the comments section below.