And I like the descriptors … about the design, the goal … that was very important … or else you get caught up, you get lost … these descriptors were very helpful … The comments from new curriculum designers were equally positive. Kim made a very clear point on how the IDeA Model would benefit her: … so we are very clear that this is what we want and then the approach, [on] how it can be done, how it can be developed and then implemented … so it is a very good overview of how content or curricula should look like. Echoing Kim’s comments, Sara commented on the benefit of the IDeA Model as a holistic framework to implement curriculum and courseware design: … it gives us a clearer direction of where we should head and I think overall it just makes it a lot more holistic in terms of how we approach both curriculum as well as the courseware that we develop. There were also useful comments on how to improve the Model, especially on specific terminology and how the Model will eventually be implemented. Adeline felt that the term ‘economic unit’ should not be used to describe the learner, while Sue commented that she was “not too sure like how to use this”. Xi, a new curriculum designer at a not-for-profit organisation, was somewhat confused by the term ‘philosophy’. This was common across a number of the curriculum designers who had limited experience. Many of these comments provided useful points of entry to further improve the Model, and the final version has taken into account most of the feedback provided. In summary, the generic comments centred around the Model providing a holistic framework to initiate curriculum design and being intuitive enough for most curriculum designers and educators to use. Some of the more confusing or less acceptable terminology used, as mentioned by the participants cited above, was subsequently replaced and clarified in the final version of the IDeA Model. In addition to the more generic feedback, there were other specific inputs which addressed critical aspects of the Model and its potential application by users, and these comments will be discussed in the next few sections of this report.
3.3 Responses to the structure of the IDeA Model While the previous section paints an overall picture of the types of responses given by the participants, this section focuses on how the participants perceived the specific dimensions and subsequent improvements needed. To recapitulate, the IDeA Model comprises four dimensions:
curriculum philosophy: sub-dimension ‘purpose’;
curriculum approach: sub-dimensions ‘practice orientation’, ‘curriculum model’ and ‘focus’;
curriculum design and implementation: sub-dimensions ‘design and facilitation’, ‘learning’ and ‘assessment’;
curriculum evaluation.
As the heuristic evolved through the research project and participants encountered different versions, some of their comments pertaining to improvements to specific dimensions and parameters are mentioned as part of the process to improve the Model. Again, at the macro level, participants 31
