Curriculum design can be seen as a set of pragmatic decisions which are already constrained by factors such as subject benchmarks, teaching resources, and market analysis. However, curriculum design and redesign represent opportunities for teams to reconsider their approaches to learning and teaching, and even to radically rethink the philosophy of a programme. Conceptualising the curriculum involves applying the same rigorous scholarship to analysing student needs and pedagogical opportunities that practitioners in other contexts apply to their research.

How teachers and curriculum designers conceptualise the curriculum has been shown to have a significant influence on their design practice and on students' learning outcomes. James Atherton (see resources below) suggests there are broadly four ways of conceptualising the curriculum, which he calls academic (induction), academic (construction), vocational (mastery) and vocational (developmental). These could be seen as corresponding to the three broad models of learning identified by Mayes and de Freitas in the JISC e-learning models study (below), i.e. associative (=induction), constructive (=construction) and situative (= vocational).

Further resources for conceptualising the curriculum, and teaching/learning techniques appropriate to different topic areas, can be found in the subject-specific area of the Design Studio.

Generic resources include:

• Phoebe: teaching approaches
• JISC e-learning models study (academic report) and How do people learn? (staff development resources)

• TESEP Rethinking Teaching, Learning and Assessment

• HEA Blended Learning review
• REAP principles of assessment design
• Chickering and Gamson's 7 principles of undergraduate education
• Design toolkit from Hertfordshire's Blended Learning Unit
• Atherton's Learning and Teaching (online): Curriculum resources
• Hybrid Learning Model from the Institutional e-Learning Services CETL and JISC Viewpoints project