Curriculum Design Flashcards

A teacher wants to ensure students can apply learned concepts to new situations. Which curriculum design element best supports this goal?

Answer: Transfer-focused performance tasks

Transfer-focused performance tasks require students to apply knowledge in novel contexts, building flexible understanding.

Which approach to curriculum organization arranges content from simple to complex across grade levels?

Answer: Spiral curriculum

A spiral curriculum revisits concepts with increasing complexity across grade levels, reinforcing and deepening understanding.

A district wants to align its K-12 science curriculum vertically. What does vertical alignment primarily ensure?

Answer: Skills and content build logically from one grade to the next

Vertical alignment ensures that concepts and skills are sequenced so each grade level builds on prior learning in a logical progression.

When designing curriculum, which component comes FIRST in the backward design model?

Answer: Identifying desired learning results

In backward design, identifying desired results (learning goals) is the first step before planning assessments or instruction.

A curriculum committee wants to address diverse student learning needs. Which strategy best achieves this within curriculum design?

Answer: Embedding differentiated pathways into the curriculum framework

Building differentiated pathways into the curriculum ensures multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression for diverse learners.

Which type of curriculum refers to what students actually learn as opposed to what was planned or taught?

Answer: Learned curriculum

The learned curriculum is what students actually internalize and understand, which may differ from what was intended or delivered.

A school adopts project-based learning units across subjects. This approach most directly reflects which curriculum design principle?

Answer: Interdisciplinary integration

Project-based learning that spans subjects reflects interdisciplinary integration, connecting knowledge and skills across content areas.