Curriculum design is a branch of education concerned with the creation of curricula for students. Some education professionals specialize in curriculum design and spend all of their time working on curricula rather than teaching in the classroom, whereas working teachers develop their own curricula in other cases. Curriculum design is also done parents who homeschool their children, sometimes with the help of an experienced educator who can offer advice and suggestions, and sometimes with the help of other homeschoolers.
In many countries, specific educational benchmarks are established to ensure that children across the country achieve a similar level of education. For example, a government may establish when children should begin learning multiplication and division, as well as reading proficiency standards. Examining these standards and determining how they can be met or exceeded is one aspect of curriculum design.
Another consideration is the students themselves, as well as the type of curriculum that would be most appropriate. Students come from a diverse range of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, so there should be no one-size-fits-all approach to curriculum development. Methods that work in an upper-class district may not be appropriate for a school in an area with many immigrants who do not speak the primary language of instruction, and methods that work with language learners may not work for children with intellectual disabilities. A skilled curriculum designer must consider the needs of the students he or she is educating.
Limitations may be taken into account when designing a curriculum. For example, a homeschooling parent might be able to take a student to London to see historical artifacts in museums and learn in context, whereas an entire classroom in Bangkok could not reasonably replicate this experience. Funding, textbook access, moral norms in the region where the students are taught, and school district limitations are all examples of limitations. Someone who works on curriculum design for sexual education programs, for example, may be designing curricula for school districts where certain subjects are forbidden to be discussed, necessitating a curriculum adjustment.
Another important aspect of curriculum design is flexibility. Many classroom teachers work with students of varying abilities, and they must be able to adapt the curriculum in order to keep all of the students engaged and learning. It may also be necessary to adjust a curriculum’s pace to address problems as they arise; for example, a class may have more difficulty grasping a concept than expected, and the teacher needs to be able to devote more time to it rather than rushing on to the next subject and leaving students confused.