ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Curriculum development

Curriculum development is like making a recipe book for teachers and students to follow. Just like how a recipe book tells you how to make a delicious meal step-by-step, a curriculum tells teachers and students what they should learn and how they should learn it throughout the school year.

In order to make a recipe book, you need to first decide what kind of food you want to include, like Italian or Mexican dishes. Similarly, in curriculum development, educators decide what subjects and topics they want to teach, such as math, science, history or literature.

Once you've decided on the type of food to include in your recipe book, you need to choose the specific recipes to include. For curriculum development, this step involves deciding which specific information or skills must be taught within each subject. For instance, in history, students may need to learn about the American Revolution, World War II, and Civil Rights Movement.

In the next step, you need to write down the ingredients and steps for each recipe in your recipe book. Similarly, in curriculum development, educators decide how the information or skills will be taught in each subject through lesson plans and instructional activities.

The final step is to test the recipes and see how they can be improved or altered. For curriculum development, educators regularly assess student progress and adjust the teaching materials, lesson plans, and instructional activities based on their students' needs.

Overall, curriculum development is a process of creating a recipe book for education, where each subject and topic includes specific information and skills and the methods to effectively teach them to students.