Curriculum Design Approaches, Models, Learner's Feedback, Methodologies, and Assessments

Curriculum Development
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Curriculum Development
Learning in the hospitality industry is advancing quickly with the operational dynamism that the industry is experiencing. The prevalent trends such as the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic and the reestablishment of hospitality trigger challenges for educators who must respond positively. Presently, hospitality education must focus on acquiring or disseminating skills that ease adaptation to the industry's dynamic trends. Educators must understand that their inputs are valuable to the learners’ relevance to the industry deep into the future. Hence, while developing the curricula, the focus must be placed on creating and disseminating knowledge and skills that match the operational environment. The curriculum development must be insightful enough to encompass the optimization of teachers output and maximization of knowledge creation and skills development among the learners. Effective curriculum development in a hotel must encompass a futuristic purpose and design before planning resources to achieve its set objectives.
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1 Purpose of Curriculum Design and Development
The learning experiences that individuals undergo stem from the structure and efficiency of the accompanying curriculum. A curriculum constitutes a systemic learning experience aimed at facilitating the learners’ ability to grasp knowledge and skills and defining a link between what one learns and the applicability of the knowledge and skills. Hence, the knowledge and skills that learners should acquire, how they acquire such knowledge and skills, and the roles and the frameworks that the instructors employ to achieve the knowledge and skill acquisition indices are encompassed in curriculum design and development. A curriculum must be sophisticated enough to accommodate the needs of both the learners and the educators to achieve the optimum objectives.
Curriculum design and development are distinct prospects that play multiple roles in disseminating and acquiring knowledge and skills. Curriculum design is the organization or structure of the curriculum. The design focuses on what should be included in the curriculum and its presentation. The curriculum design superficially intends to ensure successful implementation of the curriculum. The designs define curriculum components' arrangement and organization to facilitate learning optimally. Conversely, curriculum development is a process that guides the creation of positive improvements in a curriculum. Curriculum development must be systematic, progressive, purposeful, and planned. Curriculum development allows stakeholders to evaluate the existing programs, implement a new and improved program, and evaluate the new program's effectiveness.
Curriculum design and development bear a purpose besides outlining the structure and purpose of the curriculum. Curriculum design and development manifest the economic purpose. Curriculum design and development is a broad plan encompassing the inputs of both the learners and teachers. Through the economic lens, the stakeholders are influenced by design and development to share in linking outcomes to economic activities. Curriculum design and development also have a political purpose. Through the curriculum, education and learning goals are expanded to accommodate both to enhance the learners' abilities and to suit those learners to achieve the best in a dynamic operational environment. Hence, it steers both knowledge and skills acquisition and applying the skills and knowledge in the real world. Both the economic and political purposes of curriculum design and development showcase the multiplicity of the curriculum inputs. The learners and teachers depend on curriculum design and development to achieve their respective objectives in the learning settings.
2 Approaches and Models of Curriculum Design and Development
Curriculum designs and development can take different models and approaches depending on the objectives set by the learners and their educators. The conceptualization of a curriculum depends on the educational philosophy adopted at the design and development stages. There are multiple curriculum design and development approaches that stakeholders can consider. The first approach is the subject-centered curriculum design, in which the curriculum is partitioned based on subjects or disciplines like history, math, literature, and physics. The subject-centered approach is among the oldest designs and is commonplace in elementary, secondary schools, and colleges. Besides being easier and simple to develop, the subject-centered design is set on minimum objectives. However, the approach is disadvantageous because it enhances fragmentation and reduces the integration of knowledge and skills. There are also learner-centered curricula that focus on the learners' abilities, interests, and needs. The learner-centered curriculum focuses on what is known about human growth and development. The approach can be disadvantageous with the changing learner needs. The problem-centered approach is a curriculum developed around real-world problems. The problem-centered approach focuses on challenges that demand research and academic inputs to reach solutions.
Educators and learners should understand various curriculum models in development and design. Ralph Tyler’s model is primarily among the most popular curriculum design and development models. Tyler’s model can be vital in design, development, and evaluation. Choosing Tyler’s model implies addressing questions like the purpose of the curriculum, experiences supporting the purposes, organization of the experiences, and determination of the attainment of the purposes. The stakes model is another model of Evaluation in which the stakeholder interests are explored to ascertain the effectiveness of the curriculum. Conversely, the CIPP is a model focused on exploring the effectiveness of a curriculum based on its relevance to key factors such as context, input, process, and product (Wenger, 2000). Overall, the curriculum design and development model should foster the philosophy and objectives that the program intends to achieve. Roger’s model approached curriculum development and design in terms of the characteristics of the targeted audiences. Learners manifest variations in their interests, needs, and ability to grasp information. Classifying learners based on their characteristics steer the easy development of a curriculum that befits the needs of all stakeholders.
3 The Importance of Learner Feedback
Curriculum development fosters the design and development process's impacts on the stakeholders. A teacher uses a particular curriculum to e impactful in disseminating knowledge and skills to the learners. As such, a learning experience is rendered ineffective if the learners are not accommodated effectively throughout the process. Learner feedback is a form of response that learners offer about their learning experience. The feedback can constitute the interactions between the teacher and the students or the interactions among students. The feedback can further explore the usefulness or complexity of the learning strategies or materials used in a curriculum.
Learner feedback is valuable in different aspects of curriculum development and design. First among the elements of feedback is identifying the areas of improvement for education and training curriculum. Curriculums are never perfect in their implementation. It is impossible to find a curriculum that befits all learners' needs, preferences, and abilities at the same time. To that extent, curricula are prospects for continuous improvement. Making improvements implies identifying the weaknesses of a curriculum and making the necessary adjustments. Students can showcase limitations in curriculum design and development just as well as teachers. Some of the areas of focus when seeking feedback from learners encompass creating the ultimate student experiences by incorporating the needs and preferences outlined in the feedback within the design and development. The feedback also helps develop plans, methods, and processes that ease delivery of the engagement's objectives. Partial engagements can limit the success of the curriculum, especially through the lenses of the learners.
Student feedback is also important in enhancing performance management outcomes among all the curriculum design and development stakeholders. Teachers and students set targets that they aim to achieve within a defined time frame. For instance, a teacher can set objectives for allocating resources in the learning setting. That objective is only deemed adequate if the learners reach the set resources. Also, the stakeholders need to understand that the resources are distributed equitably, based on the learners' needs and the teachers' capabilities. Still, in performance management, the teachers should gauge their performances based on how the students meet their targets. A failure to involve learners in the feedback mechanism limits the ability of all the stakeholders to pursue the performance targets optimally.
Student feedback also defines the scope of the curriculum. Notable limits should characterize an ideal curriculum. Having limits means that the stakeholders can control activities about the execution of the objectives. Some aspects of the limit that the curriculum must address relative to student feedback include the design. The student feedback outlined the design's prospects that can be accommodated, including the subject matter and social needs. Other aspects of design that are limited to the inputs of learner feedback include specifications of the required time, translating needs into learning, grouping objectives, and advancing all the six steps in curriculum design. Put simply, the curriculum is inadequate without student feedback.
1.4 How to Manage Risks in Curriculum Development
Risk management is a crucial prospect in curriculum development. Understanding the risk management strategies should enhance the efficiency in both the development and implementation of the curriculum. Curriculum development is characterized by a range of risks, including possible changes in resource allocation. If the resources do not match the targets, it becomes challenging for the curriculum to reach its potential. The other risk that curriculum development faces are the advancements in new technologies. Technology is a dynamic prospect whose trajectory is impossible to predict. However, curriculum development and implementation rely on various technological tools' input. The dynamism of technological changes puts the implementation of a curriculum at risk of failure. The other risks that curriculum development faces include demographic changes, policy changes, and changes in socioeconomic issues such as globalization.
Multiple strategies should be available to manage risks at the curriculum development stage. Primary among the risk management strategies is risk assessment. Curriculum developers should understand the risks that they face at the development stage. Upon assessing their operational environment, the risks can be ranked based on their possible occurrences. Anticipating risks means that the stakeholders are prepared to address the challenges. Contingency strategies must accompany each risk assessment initiative. Curriculum developers can as well devolve risks. Each stakeholder, including the teachers and the learners, can be educated on various risks that the curriculum faces and their roles in mitigating the impacts of those risks. Like in any operational environment, the stakeholders in curriculum development should focus on aspects of risk management, including reduction of the scope of risks and loss prevention. Other areas of risk management that can be explored include avoidance, transferring, and sharing the risks to reduce the impacts. Notably, there are only limited chances to avoid risks. Hence, stakeholders must reduce the damages that specific risks can trigger. Such preparedness occurs only through efficient risk management mechanisms.
1 Methodologies Used to Monitor and Evaluate Curriculum
Monitoring and Evaluation of curriculum can take different methodologies depending on the objectives set by the stakeholders. The primary curriculum monitoring and evaluation models focus on design models used at the development stage. Ralph Tyler’s model is among the models that offer insightful evaluation and monitoring protocols for curricula (Tummons, 2010). Tyler’s model focuses on four key aspects: the outcome targets for a curriculum, educational experiences, organization of experiences, and determination of purposes. The four pillars of the model define the scope by which a curriculum is evaluated. It becomes simpler to understand if the curriculum is achieving its set objectives.
Figure 1: Tyler’s Model
Tyler’s model showcases notable benefits and drawbacks in its application. The model limits the challenges of curriculum development, planning, and management. However, curriculum development cannot be perfect considering the consistent changes that it attracts. Tyler’s model also emphasizes measurable objectives. That implies ignorance of the ethical and moral objectives that constitute the concept of curriculum design and development.
Curriculum monitoring and Evaluation can also be embedded in techniques not linked to the design models. Formative monitoring and Evaluation are among the prominent methods used to assess the curriculum as it is used. With formative Evaluation, the curriculum is monitored in terms of its progress and evaluated consistently. Formative Evaluation is ideal for most curriculums that demand the implementation of contingency inputs without waiting for the application to a particular duration. However, formative evaluation is challenging to implement because the curriculum is a consistently developing prospect, and implementing the changes daily or weekly can be costly and labor-intensive. The other monitoring and evaluation approaches that can be subject to curriculum development and design include summative assessment encompassing Evaluation consistently and the methods and models that focus on various design factors for monitoring and Evaluation. The curriculum development and design stakeholders can choose the monitoring and evaluation strategies depending on the intended frequency of implementation and the targeted outcomes.
Curriculum Plan Resources
The curriculum plan resources in this section focus on education in hospitality. The changing environment in hospitality has triggered the need to learn new prospects and avenues in adapting to the changes. Like in any other industry, learning in hospitality also encompasses the need to instill skills and knowledge in learners and enhance the application of those skills and knowledge in the real world. The curriculum in hospitality should foster the industry's key characteristics, including demographic diversity, changing technological advancements, and changing socioeconomic trends, including globalization. All the above unique characteristics of hospitality must be accommodated in the curriculum to steer an achievement of the set objectives.
2.1 Learning Objectives and Outcomes Required
The curriculum will focus on objectives that define the behaviors that the teacher will expect from the learners in the execution of the curriculum. To that extent, the learning objectives will be structured to give the learners a clear insight into what to expect to learn, accords the educator the goals to achieve in presenting the session's content, and develops the basis for Evaluation for the learner and the trainer. The three components of the objectives herein include performance, in which the objectives describe what the learner will know or can achieve in measurable terms. The objectives also bear conditions where the curriculum outlines the circumstances within which the participant is expected to optimize learning. The last aspect of the objectives should ...