The Sequence of Curriculum
The Sequence of Curriculum
What sequence means
- The order in which content is taught.
- Scope and sequence go hand in hand.
Five criteria for sequencing
- Textual presentation: the order a textbook lays out.
- Educator preference: the teacher’s own judgement.
- Structure of the disciplines: the logic of the subject itself.
- Learners’ interests: starting where curiosity is.
- Learning hierarchies: simpler skills before the ones built on them.
Deciding what to teach is only half the job. The other half is deciding the order. Sequence is the answer to a single question: what should be taught, and in what order? A curriculum that contains all the right content in the wrong order can still fail, because some ideas only make sense once others are in place.
Scope and sequence travel together. Once a developer has decided how much of which knowledge to include, the same thinking has to settle the order.
If curriculum developers can reflect carefully on what they offer, they must also be able to sequence it. Choosing the content and ordering the content are two sides of the same decision.
Five criteria for sequencing
There is no single right order for content. Five different criteria can guide the decision, and developers often weigh more than one.
- Textual presentation: follow the order a textbook already lays out. It is convenient and ready-made, though it hands the sequencing decision to the book’s authors.
- Educator preference: order the content by the teacher’s own professional judgement about what works in their classroom.
- Structure of the disciplines: follow the internal logic of the subject itself. Some topics are prior to others by the nature of the field, so the discipline’s own structure sets the order.
- Learners’ interests: begin where learner curiosity is strongest and let that pull the sequence along, so motivation carries the learning forward.
- Learning hierarchies: teach simpler skills before the more complex ones that depend on them. A learner usually needs addition before multiplication, because the later skill is built on the earlier one.
| Criterion | The order follows… |
|---|---|
| Textual presentation | The textbook’s layout |
| Educator preference | The teacher’s judgement |
| Structure of the disciplines | The logic of the subject |
| Learners’ interests | Where curiosity is strongest |
| Learning hierarchies | Simpler skills before harder ones |
A teacher makes sure learners can add fluently before introducing multiplication.
Which sequencing criterion is being used?
A teacher reorders a unit to start with the topic learners are most curious about, hoping the interest will carry the rest.
Which criterion is this?
The order in which content is taught
Sequence and scope go hand in hand: once a developer decides how much to teach, the same thinking must set the order. Some ideas only make sense once others are in place.
Following the subject’s own internal logic
Some topics come before others by the nature of the field itself. This criterion lets the discipline’s structure, rather than a textbook or the teacher’s preference, decide the order.
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