How a Mastery Rubric contributes to Course & Curriculum Development

A Mastery Rubric can address (or help identify) many common challenges in higher education – including curriculum, course, and training programs.

Table. How a Mastery Rubric contributes to course and curriculum development.

Curriculum Development Phase	Contributions to Curriculum	Contributions to Course
Articulate Learning Outcomes (LO) § Identifying target audienceSpecifying prerequisites	Streamlines planning/ development and evaluation. Provides criteria for admission and qualification/ completion. Supports articulation of concrete and observable outcomes. (LOs can be stated in terms of PLDs and stages) Enables identification of redundancy to promote building up sophistication rather than repetition. Can align faculty (particularly for courses that are taken in sequence).	Facilitates delimiting/focus in a given course Supports realistic outcomes given time and prerequisites (LOs can be stated in terms of PLDs and stages) Promotes targeted follow-up (eg, did you move on/continue to refine at a level?) Supports self-directed learners’ identification of individualized learning goals –leading them to, or following from, the course.
Learning Experiences (LE) Selecting, creating, revising in-class activities Managing/ planning time	Much of traditional/existing LEs can be retained, if additional (extra curricular) opportunities are created to fill in any gaps. Provides guidance for flipping classrooms. Parameters help guide curriculum revisions/trying new methods.	Focuses instruction and LEs so that realistic LOs can be accomplished with a variety of content. Enables exploration/ creativity in LEs as long as they support the specific (target) KSA(s) and levels that learners want/need.
Content Ensuring content coverage	MR KSAs are all specific to the domain of interest, and can be used to teach, provide practice, and assess what learners learn and can do. KSAs provide rationale for new technology instruction without deviating from LOs, and movement towards independence. Enables instructors and curriculum developers to engage with/integrate multiple – diverse – content guidelines.	Allows demonstration of relevance of any given content to the learners’ goals/career stage. Supports the use of diverse content to enable deeper learning (for greater retention). Supports learners engaging in their own growth (by enabling their selection of specific learning/content). Allows multiple instructional opportunities at targeted, consistently-graded levels (beginner, median, advanced). Facilitates the ‘cloning’ of workshops or courses where KSAs are specifically improved (or documented) while content can vary.
Assessment (of learners) Developing effective -actionable- assessment of learning	Like LOs, target and align LOs with assessment using the MR. Add metacognition throughout the curriculum, to promote self-directed learning beyond the end of the curriculum. Capitalize on observability of MR PLDs to design assessments that will be aligned with curricular LOs. Sharing the MR with all learners, and encouraging them to understand the alignment of all courses in the curriculum with the curricular LOs allows them to self-direct (as learners) and utilize assessments to gauge their progress along the MR KSA trajectories. The PLDs allow faculty to focus assessments and to add opportunities for peer evaluation that further LOs as well as increasing opportunities for formative feedback.	MR-Bi PLDs clarify what learners need to demonstrate, so that “satisfaction” or other survey-based assessments can be replaced with assessments that are aligned with LOs. Sharing the MR with learners, and encouraging them to understand the alignment of the course with the LOs allows them to demonstrate how they a) self direct (as learners) and b) can utilize assessments to gauge their progress along the MR KSA trajectories.
Evaluation (of impact of curriculum on learners) Assuring fidelity to LOs Aligning teaching for learning	Curriculum can be evaluated for whether LOs were/were not achieved for most learners, focusing on KSAs, and possibly developmental stages, where failures of the curriculum to promote LOs occurred (or occurred most often). LOs can also be evaluated for how realistic they were.	Strengths and weaknesses in courses can be identified and addressed according to whether LOs, stated in terms of PLDs and stages, were a) reasonable for the time and preparedness of learners; and b) sufficiently supported by the LEs.