Get Started with Primary and Secondary Education Curriculum Modeling
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Explain the importance of curriculum modeling for primary and secondary education institutions.
- Review the objects and tools used for modeling curriculum in Agentforce Education.
- Summarize the common curriculum modeling strategies used by primary and secondary education institutions.
Education Cloud is now called Agentforce Education. You may see references to Education Cloud in our application and documentation.
Modeling Your Primary or Secondary Education Curriculum
Effective instruction is not only about engagement and support but also structure. The structure you use to organize curriculum is as important as the content you choose. Content that is structured well becomes a sequence of learning experiences that build skills and knowledge.
Curriculum modeling is all about laying out the who, what, when, where, why, and how of learning. Rather than just putting together a broad list of topics, you formulate a comprehensive strategy that ensures all the components of an educational experience are coherent and effective. That’s why your curriculum model defines, in addition to programs and courses, the sequence of learning, the requirements that students complete, and the achievements they earn when they meet the requirements.
A well-organized and purposeful learning model is the cornerstone of an effective educational experience and the academic operations that support it. By structuring and sequencing your educational offerings and requirements, you can align expectations across students, faculty, and advisors and provide everyone with a clear roadmap for success.
In primary and secondary education, that clarity serves a unique set of needs. Learners often arrive with different academic backgrounds and abilities. Institutions also need to communicate learner progress and unfulfilled requirements not just to students but to families, case workers, and other interested parties.
Agentforce Education supports these needs with a flexible learning data model designed to support institutions of all shapes and sizes. That flexibility, while being useful, can also prove a bit daunting when it comes time to planning out your modeling strategy. Where do you start when structuring your curriculum data? How do you manage your programs and courses over time?
In this module, you explore some recommended approaches for structuring your primary or secondary education curriculum in Agentforce Education. But before that, let’s go over the primary objects and tools for modeling curricula in Agentforce Education.
Learning Data Model Components and Tools
Agentforce Education provides a robust platform for modeling and maintaining your institution’s academic offerings.
Specialized objects, such as learning programs, courses, outcomes, and achievements, help you organize the curriculum you offer. This learning data also provides the foundation for powerful Agentforce Education apps, including Academic Operations, Student Success, Recruitment and Admissions, and others.
Here are the objects that you’ll primarily use to build out your curriculum in Agentforce Education.
Object |
Description |
|---|---|
Learning Program |
A curriculum or academic path that serves as the overarching framework for credentials |
Learning Program Plan |
A variation of a learning program with unique requirements, courses and electives, often defined for specific academic years or concentrations |
Learning Course |
A generic template of an individual course that isn’t tied to a specific term or instructor |
Learning |
A central record of academic data that’s automatically created when you configure a learning program or learning course and stores related outcomes, achievements, and foundation items. |
Course Offering |
A scheduled instance or section of a learning course that defines the time, location, and instructor |
Learning Foundation Item |
A defined relationship between courses and establishes prerequisites, corequisites, or recommended learning sequences |
Learning Achievement |
A final outcome or credential that a learner earns on completing a program or course |
Learning Outcome Item |
A defined relationship between a Learning entity and a specific requirement that a learner attempts to achieve |
In addition to these entities, the learning data model includes objects for defining academic timeframes, including academic year, academic term, and academic session.
To put all these components into action, Agentforce Education offers two intuitive tools for modeling and managing your curriculum.
- The Learning Wizard helps you create and modify learning programs and courses. It also makes it easy to structure the order of learning by configuring prerequisites, corequisites, recommended courses, linked courses, and other criteria.
- The Program Plan Builder helps you create, manage, and visualize your institution’s learning program plans. You can organize specific requirements, courses, and electives, including reusable collections, to efficiently structure your curriculum across academic years or accreditation cycles.
Now, it’s time to begin exploring the different methods for modeling primary and secondary education curriculum data.
Choosing the Correct Curriculum Modeling Strategy
When you’re beginning your modeling strategy, start by considering the overarching structure of your learning programs. In primary and secondary education, most institutions follow one of two common approaches.
-
One program per year (OPY): Create a single learning program for each grade, year group, form, or class level. This approach is often used by primary education institutions.
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One program for multiple years (OPMY): Create a single learning program that includes all of the graduation requirements that students complete over the course of multiple years. This approach is often best suited for secondary education institutions.
Some institutions use a hybrid approach, combining elements of both models. For example, you might use the OPY strategy for lower grades, such as K–5, and then switch to OPMY for grades 6–8, where requirements are more flexible. Or if your institution offers special programs, such as Career and Technical Education (CTE), you might use the OPY method for standard curriculum and then use OPMY for the advanced programs.
In the following units, you explore each modeling approach in more detail. As you evaluate which model best fits your institution, ask yourself these important questions.
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Structure: Are students on a fixed schedule, or are there several pathways towards completing the curriculum?
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Credit and graduation requirements: Do requirements span multiple academic years, or are they fixed to each year?
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Flexibility: Do students move between levels at different paces, or do they all progress at the same rate?
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Administration: Which model will best accommodate your scheduling, registration, and reporting?
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Student Experience: Which model will provide the most transparency to students and families?
In this unit, you learned the importance of curriculum modeling, reviewed important Agentforce Education objects and tools, and began thinking through how to structure a model that best fits your institution. In the next unit, you dive deeper into the first strategy for building a learning catalog: the one-program-per-year method.