What must our planning entail to have an intellectual impact on everyone: the less experienced; the highly able, but unmotivated; the less able; those with varied interests and styles?
Curriculum takes content (from external standards and local goals) and shapes it into a plan for how to conduct effective and engaging teaching and learning. It is thus more than a list of topics and lists of key facts and skills (the “inputs”). It is a map for how to achieve the “outputs” of desired student performance, in which appropriate learning activities and assessments are suggested to make it more likely that students achieve the desired results.
They specify what the learner should have achieved upon leaving, what the learner needs to do to achieve, and what the teacher needs to do to achieve the results sought.
By desired results we mean what has often been termed intended outcomes, achievement targets, or performance standards. All four terms are meant to shift our focus away from the inputs to the output: what the student should be able to know, do, and understand upon leaving, expressed in performance and product terms.