Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal (Dec 2013)

Principles: Establishing the Foundation for a Self- access Curriculum

  • Elizabeth Lammons

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 4
pp. 353 – 366

Abstract

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This third installment of the regular column documenting the curriculum development project taking place at the Self-Access Learning Centre (SALC) at Kanda University of International Studies (KUIS), Japan, focuses on the third stage in Nation and Macalister’s framework, namely Principles. While the previous installment (Takahashi et al., 2013) focused on establishing a clear understanding of student needs, essentially the “what”, or the content of the curriculum, this stage focuses on establishing guiding principles for the “how”: the format, sequencing of content and assessment procedures to be developed. In this installment, Elizabeth Lammons explains the process of deciding these principles, and how they were then used to evaluate the existing curriculum. The results of this evaluation allow the learning advisors to have a clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the current content and delivery model, which will prove invaluable in the re-development process, which will also be guided by these principles. A copy of the principles in full is available in the Appendix.

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