The Curriculum Guide Rating Scale below was developed for use in an initial assignment in my graduate classes ED721 – Fundamentals of Curriculum. PDFs of both the assignment and the scale are at the bottom of the page. If you use these please contact me.
This exercise was meant to help my students begin to analyze curriculum critically. It was merely a way of getting my students to begin to think about some of the many components that are often part of the written (overt) curriculum.
The following curriculum guide rating scale has been tweaked over the years from something I was initially given in a long ago graduate class. It has been changed many times — added to, modified and rearranged so that it met my teaching needs. It served to assist my students in evaluating a variety of curricula at both critical and comparative levels. But know this it is a listing of anything and everything I have ever viewed in a curriculum guide. Considering its lengthy metamorphosis it would be highly unusual for one guide to contain all of the elements listed on this evaluation sheet.
Humans learn a great deal through comparisons. May I suggest if you are going to use this for ratings, use the categories and components on the scale to help you compare and contrast different types of guides. If you do this, as you rate them give each guide a different symbol, or use a different colored pen, or use a different sheet for each guide.
This comparative exercise was meant to aid my students in deciding what was user-friendly curriculum and what is not. Readers may find that at national, state, and district levels there are often huge differences in what people term “curriculum.” Also, some schools use purchased or commercial curricula. The curricula readers are using for comparisons may be very good and easy to use, or conversely, quite awful. From my point of view the very worst curriculum is probably that which is simply a copied table of contents of some text.
The more variety of documents viewers can examine, the more likely it is that they will find elements they think should be incorporated into a usable format. Curriculum is meant to be used, and it is utterly useless if no one looks at it or never reads it. It is just another document gathering dust if it just sits on a shelf or is stowed in the deep recesses of a computer cache.
So if you are using the curriculum rating scale to help you write or revise a document, personal preferences should be internalized and applied to writing or developing your own curriculum. Remember as you conduct a comparative examination, if you find aspects that you really like, please share them with your colleagues or other professionals.
(*If you want to use this rating scale with your students, please print the PDF version not as it appears on this webpage. wilson’s curriculum guide rating scale )
| Wilson’s Curriculum Preliminary Rating Scale | Yes | No | Somewhat |
| SECTION I ‑ FORMAT | |||
| 1. TITLE PAGE – includes the following elements:
A. Title of the guide B. Name and address of the school system or agency that is responsible for the development of the guide. C. Authors (Helpful in the event clarification or revisions are needed.) D. Grade Level(s) E. Subject Area(s) F. Date of Publication |
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| 2. PREFACE – introductory portion, or foreword includes the following:
A. Brief statement as to what needs the guide fulfills ‑ a needs statement. B. A brief statement that tells why or how the guide was designed – a mission statement. C. Statements about the intended audience — for whom was the guide designed. D. Acknowledgments ‑‑ mentions the individuals that planned and prepared the guide. (Backgrounds are often useful in placing documents in contexts.) E. Organization aids 1). Table of Contents. 2). References or Bibliography. 3). Glossary. 4). Appendix. 5). Index 6). Resources for the user 7). Tabs or color coded sections |
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| 5. INTRODUCTION ‑ specifies how to use the guide. | Yes | No | Somewhat |
| 6. PHILOSOPHY – clear statement or statements of the philosophy or beliefs behind the guide | Yes | No | Somewhat |
| 7. INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN – Folks often use the terms aims, goals and objectives interchangeably. This can be confusing as they are not or should not be interchangeable in a formal curriculum document. Going frombroad to narrow remember the acronym AGO.)
A. Aims (broad statements of instructions directions). B. Goals (subsets of the aims). C. Objectives (subsets of the goals).(The elements above might be called different things, but they should be in converging order.) 1). Written in behavioral terms. 2). Written as problem solving objectives. 3). Written as expressive activities. (Exploratory activities that trigger learning events.) 4). Written differently than behaviorally. 5). Combinations of the above. (*2 & 3 are terms you may not be familiar with. You may wish to just check that they are written differently or check my website https://thesecondprinciple.com/instructional-design/beyond-behavioral-objectives/ for related pages.) D. Were instructional objectives: Specific__ General__ A Combination__ E. Objectives were a general reflection of the general directions of the aims and goals. F. There are suggested evaluation procedures. |
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| SECTION 2 ‑ DESIGN:
A. Relates philosophy, objectives and suggested content, one to the other. B. Follows a consistent organization and structure. C. Provides suggestions and directions, but not prescriptions. D. Relates guide to other guides or resources in the field. F. Relates guide to other guides or materials within the system or district. G. Document is well written. H. Document is easily understandable. I. Layout is user friendly. J. Provides materials that can be reproduced K. Differentiates directions for teacher and students. L Differentiates objectives into must, need, and nice to knows, or as introduced, developed, and mastered, or makes provisions for horizontal enrichment or vertical acceleration. M. Includes lists and locations of supplementary instructional materials. N. Suggests resources from school and/or community. O. Encourages continuous revision by using looseleaf format or digital format. |
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| SECTION 3 ‑ CONTENT, MATERIALS, AND PROCEDURES
A. Time allotments are specified for each unit. B. Lists of general aims, goals and/or objectives for more than one grade level were provided. C. There are methods of differentiated instruction. 1). Cognitive __Lower order thinking skills__(remembering, comprehending, applying) Higher order thinking skills__(analyzing, evaluating, creating) 2). Affective __ 3). Tactile, kinesthetic, physical activities __ 4). Learning styles __ 5). Modalities (visual, auditory, kinesthetic/tactile) __ 6). Creative activities__ 7). Multicultural activities __ D. Includes outlines for: 1). Content __ 2). Processes__ E. There is a direct and obvious relationship to the general aims and goals and the philosophy of the document. F. Suggests a variety of materials. G. Suggests a variety of supplemental or enrichment materials. H. Gives lists of resources and reference material. I. Suggests varied teaching models or instructional methods for achieving the goals. J. Offers prototypes or a series of activities that achieve objectives. K. Gives teachers appropriate background material to carry out objectives. L. Allows for professional freedom in creating plans or alternative plans for reaching the stated objectives. M. Includes suggestions or methods of evaluation. |
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| My overall general impressions of this document(s) was: Annotate reasons for liking or disliking the document here. | Was the document:
Usable, or needs major improvements |
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The PDF of the charts can be downloaded are curriculum check sheet and the curriculum guide analysis assignment wilsonanalysisassignment. Before using either of these documents, please see my usage polices
Related Page – Writing good curriculum