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Writer's pictureZubia Mughal

What's a High Quality Curriculum: Workplace Skills to Learning Outcomes Alignment


Finch aptly describes the world-class workplace in which learners (future employees) can deal with anything in manufacturing and IT to business development and interpersonal relationship management. A world-class workplace would require agility and flexibility. A curriculum that prepares students for a world-class workplace is a quality curriculum. And Finch warns that faculty cannot continue to teach the same way they did before. They would need to create learning experiences with a longer shelf-life. Three main goals of a quality curriculum according to Finch, are:



In short, the learning environment of the learners must simulate the real-world work environment, where projects and assignments are based on authentic scenarios, and team members take actual roles of workplace colleagues and the professor the role of a supervisor. Finch describes these three goals in detail in the appendix section.

The ACTE, I believe stems from Finch's indicators. It is a formally evolved curriculum that encompasses the future role-centeredness notion of the learner. We see similarities between the need for a standards-based curriculum (ISO) and many similar themes. However, the ACTE is more centered around the learner's needs as well as the employer's needs. For example, the multiple-pathway/entry/exit points of a curriculum make it versatile and available for all kinds of learners for several levels of employment in a field.

Another distinguishing feature is the Access and Equity section, which requires institutions to target learners from all geographic areas and offer something for everyone. The goal is to create a learner-centered curriculum that works with the learner issues and compensates for their disadvantages. This section is very important to drive enrollment into the CTE programs.

The final section that needs to be highlighted from the ACTE is the continuous need for staff development. The Self-Evaluation for Quality Programs document is a great example, where instructors are actively requested to reflect on their professional and teaching practices to reduce the theory and practice gap.

Faculty development (in my opinion) is the strongest indicator of a quality curriculum implementation indicator. How do institutions achieve quality curriculum enforcement? By training faculty, by keeping them up to date with educational technology tools that simulate the workplace and who will ultimately create world-class employees. I think this is a key takeaway for me from these readings. I can use several of the ACTE evaluation indicators to create a faculty development curriculum.

I also believe, both Finch and the ACTE indicators are built on the notion that Academia and Vocational education needs to be merged meaningfully to develop learning pathways that work for the learner.

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