A Project-Centric Curriculum Design

Abstract

Student success was the motivation for evolving an individual project-based course into a project-centric curriculum. A one semester project was first extended across a sequence of three interrelated courses tied together through their focus on the success of small team projects that spanned those courses. This sequence was then targeted as the core of a redesign of the entire program curriculum focused on project and student success. Currently, the department is in the process of introducing the measurement of project success as a tool for assessment and control of the department’s learning objectives. An overview of the design of this curriculum, lessons learned from developing it, and benefits of this type of curriculum in quality of student learning, community engagement, and reputation of the university, will be discussed.