What’s Your Curriculum Promise? This may seem like a really basic question –and it is, and it’s not.
Often times I find brilliant teachers, healers and professionals are so deep in the forest of their content and expertise that they can have a hard time identifying their Curriculum Promise when asked.
Experts in their field can often be so absorbed in the journey that they forget that new travelers in this territory benefit from a clear curriculum pathway, a map that orients them to the journey ahead.
In my experience, many experts navigate the content field by deep study, practice and allowing themselves to ultimately be guided by their intuition in teaching. This can be a beautiful process when the familiar territory becomes second nature and can be overwhelming for new learners when it’s not!
Thus, learners, who are investing time, money and energy to study with you, the expert, need to know what your Curriculum Promise is in clear, easy to understand terms.
A Curriculum Promise is also known in Educational Design speak as your Student Learning Outcomes, or SLOs. These are what your curriculum (course or program) promises that students will be able to know, think and do at the end of your curriculum.
As an educational designer, I often find that teachers and professionals who are experts in their field mistake the topics of their course and the territory they will cover with their course promise.
So, for my experts who are designing curriculum, remember on one hand, being absorbed and saturated in your content knowledge is a blessing, as this is the realm of THE EXPERT. On the other hand, being totally “in it” can make it difficult to see the arc of the curriculum journey with the eyes of a new learner.
Let’s engage the art of curriculum design to help clarify your Curriculum Promise.
If you are struggling to answer the question, “What is my Curriculum Promise?” With fresh eyes look at your course, training or program and complete the following sentences:
- At the end of my course/program/training students will___________________________.
- At the end of my course/program/training students will know____________________.
- At the end of my course/program/training students will be able to_______________.