In designing this curriculum, the concept of backwards design was always in the forefront of our minds. Backwards design emphasizes starting with goals and working backwards, but it also acknowledges that in practice, while the product is necessarily linear, the process isn’t always so tidy. (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005.) In our case, we began with the goal of creating a curriculum that would provide adult ESL students with the tools they needed to be successful in their studies in the health sciences field at Monterey Peninsula College.

At the beginning of our project, we were influenced by ideas in Design Thinking, especially the design stage in which all ideas are seriously considered. (Dziersk, 2006.) We considered many different pathways without rejecting anything out of hand. Should the course be tied to specific skills necessary in the Medical Assisting field? Should the course focus on academic skills that would be useful to any college student, regardless of field? What exactly would the content of the course be? In the end, we looked at some of the student preferences expressed in our Needs Analysis, and reformulated our goals. We chose to design a more general and less focused curriculum that would allow students to explore options and possibilities in their futures, while retaining a focus on health science-related content and academic skills.

We were also influenced also by the ideas of Bill Ayers (2001), which describe an approach to curriculum design that includes asking questions such as “Are there opportunities for discovery and surprise?”, “Are students engaged with primary sources and hands-on materials?”, and “Is the work linked to student questions and interests?” (p. 91). Our rationale for moving from more general topics earlier in the course to more specific topics as the course progresses reflect the idea of students exploring their interests, more broadly at first and with more focus later on, as both their self-awareness and skills build. Ayers’ ideas also encouraged us to consider how to connect the classroom to the outside world, and to connect the curriculum to larger issues and ideas in the community and in the world. Our unit on ethical issues in medicine addresses some of those ideas directly, but it’s a principle that can guide the teaching of all of the content in the curriculum. Our hope is that students find the course useful for reflecting on and formulating their future goals.

We wanted a curriculum that gave students time to engage thoroughly with the material, and to have some control over what the material would be, while at the same time providing the teacher with a road map that allowed students to reach goals at the end of the course. We tried to build extra flexibility into the curriculum in order to achieve this, and as part of this flexibility we included “Project weeks” at the end of every two-week cycle. Project weeks are intended to give students a chance to further develop skills and knowledge from the content-based weeks, but they’re also intended to provide built-in flexibility for teachers. Is there a particular subject that students were especially interested in or wish to develop further? Are there more outside resources, or a more specific application of a general topic that the students’ wish to work on? Project weeks are designed to promote those opportunities, while at the same time the overall curriculum stays on track. As Ayers explains, a student-centered approach “does not mean that anything goes, or that the teacher disappears. On the contrary, the teacher has a bigger responsibility to create a dynamic and flexible classroom, and to build challenge and exposure into each school day.” (p. 89).

In a flexible curriculum, it’s especially important that the goals and objectives provide the teacher with a clear map to a realistic end point. Goals should be realistic, achievable, and future-oriented. (Graves, 2000.) With this in mind, we designed our course goals to be general enough to allow for flexibility, but also specific enough that students will be able to feel confident at the end that the course has served as a bridge to the next step in their futures.

References

Ayers, W. (2001). To teach: The journey of a teacher. New York: Teachers College Press.

Dziersk, M. (2006). Design Thinking… What is That? Retrieved May 1, 2015, from http://www.fastcompany.com/919258/design-thinking-what

Graves, K. (2000). Designing language courses: A guide for teachers. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall