Appendix 5: Guidelines for an Ideal Course and Curriculum Development

As an archival continuing education provider, you have decided on the topic for your course or program based on research and feedback from various sources that point to the need for a presentation on this topic.

In the case of an individual instructor proposing a course, a good first step is to contact the provider and ensure that the course idea is a good fit for the provider, in terms of content, delivery format, audience, and development timeline.

Consider listing the following for the single course or multi-course curriculum:

• Goals. What do you intend to accomplish? Create an overview. Each goal/purpose should be stated relative to the rationale behind the content.
• Learning objectives. Use verbs that convey measurable behavioral objectives (e.g., registrants will be able to define [knowledge], classify [comprehension], calculate [application], appraise [analysis], assemble [synthesis], or determine [evaluation]). Each learning objective may be broken into subcategories that detail what will be discussed and what activities will take place.
• Outcomes. These should clearly identify how learning can be applied in the workplace.
• Intended audience (introductory, intermediate, advanced, seasoned, etc.).
• Secondary audience who would benefit from attending, if appropriate.
• Required or recommended prerequisite knowledge, skills, or behaviors.
• Schedule/outline.
• Which techniques – lecture, discussion, simulation, or case study – do you intend to use for each component?
• Describe the exercises and case studies that you plan to incorporate. For case studies, it is best to use cases based on personal experience wherever possible. Personal experience is much more compelling in an instructional situation than are generic examples, and instructors are strongly encouraged to bring their own case studies to the classroom.
• Pre-course readings you may want to assign.
• Audiovisual requirements to present what you have in mind.
• Delivery format and reason for this choice.