Collaborative Curriculum Design for Sustainable Innovation and Teacher Learning

This open access book provides insight into what it takes to actively involve teachers in the curriculum design process. It examines different aspects of teacher involvement in collaborative curriculum design, with specific attention to its implications for sustainable curriculum innovation and teacher learning. Divided into six sections, the book starts out by introducing the notion of collaborative curriculum design and discusses its historical and theoretical foundations. It describes various approaches commonly adopted to actively involve teachers in the (co-)design of curriculum materials. Sections two and three provide examples of what key phases in the curriculum design process – such as needs analysis, design and development, and implementation – look like across various collaborative curriculum design projects. Section four reports on the impact of collaborative curriculum design on student learning, teacher practices, teacher professional growth, and institutional change.Building on the research evidence about the outcomes of collaborative curriculum design, section five focuses on sustainability, scaling-up and curriculum leadership issues, which are key to the continuation and further evolution of curriculum innovations. Future perspectives are addressed in section six with emphasis on the infrastructure of a sustainable curriculum innovation.

Author Biography

Jules Pieters is professor-emeritus of Applied Psychology at the University of Twente, The Netherlands. He chaired the Department of Curriculum Design and Educational Innovation, University of Twente. He was involved in research projects on inquiry and collaboration in professional knowledge development of teachers, on co-designing of curriculum materials and learning environments by teachers in teacher design teams, on psychological design, and on knowledge dissemination.

Joke Voogt is professor of ICT and Curriculum at the University of Amsterdam and professor of Educational Innovation and ICT at Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. Her areas of expertise are curriculum innovation and teacher learning, in particular related to 21st century skills and the integration of technology in education. She is co-editor of the International Handbook of Information Technology in Primary and Secondary Education (2008, 2018) and co-founder and chair of the EDUsummIT, the international Summit for research, policy and practice on technology in education.

Natalie Pareja Roblin is working as Senior Researcher at the Higher Education Research and Innovation Group of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, where she studies the integration of research in the curriculum of higher (vocational) education. Her research interests include curriculum design, teacher professional development, and research-practice partnerships.