Embracing Curriculum Change: How GMCTL Can Support Leaders

For successful curriculum change, it is important to have buy-in from your faculty. This article summarizes supports available to curriculum change leaders to mitigate some potential causes of resistance to curriculum change.

By Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning

Change in higher education can feel overwhelming—especially when it arrives quickly or unexpectedly. Whether driven by new technologies like AI, shifting student expectations, or broader social and economic forces, curriculum change can be challenging to navigate. But at its heart, the purpose remains clear: to support student learning in ways that are meaningful, relevant, and future-focused. At the same time, programs must continue to represent student achievement in ways that are valid, consistent, and trustworthy. The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning (GMCTL) is here to support curriculum leaders to make these changes more manageable.

Here’s how we can help:

1. Access to the Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund (TLIF)

One of the primary concerns during curriculum change is the availability of resources. The Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund (TLIF) is designed to support curriculum change projects that enhance teaching and learning across many courses. You can use this fund to:

  • Develop new programs or substantially revise existing programs.
  • Improve assessment strategies across courses and/or within programs (e.g. shifting to competency-based assessment).
  • Change instructional approaches across courses, especially approaches that are new to the program(s).
  • By leveraging the TLIF, leaders can proactively address some of the resource constraints that may otherwise end up being pain points during change processes.

2. Expert Support from Curriculum Team

GMCTL has a curriculum team of staff who support curriculum change processes at no additional cost to academic units. These staff are dedicated to supporting leaders throughout the curriculum change process. They can:

  • Provide One-to-One Consultations: Offer personalized support to curriculum change leaders, addressing specific challenges and providing tailored advice.
  • Facilitate Workshops and Sessions: Organize and lead sessions with faculty to discuss proposed changes, gather feedback, and build consensus.
  • Support Curriculum Mapping and Funding Applications: We design and facilitate curriculum mapping processes that are tailored to your program’s needs. Using the Curriculum Alignment Tool, we help you create a clear map of how courses align with learning outcomes—giving you the insights you need to inform decision-making. We also collaborate with you on Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund (TLIF) applications to strengthen proposals and align them with funding priorities.

3. Structured Curriculum Change Process

Navigating curriculum change can be complex, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. The GMCTL offers a comprehensive Curriculum Design Guide that outlines a structured process for facilitating successful curriculum changes. Step 1 focuses on helping leaders create conditions to mitigate some concerns that may lead to resistance.

Each step in the Curriculum Design Guide also includes a link to an overview of Common Pitfalls to Avoid. Take a look at the video below of common pitfalls for Step 1. Do any of these sound familiar to you?

Engagement with our curriculum team varies considerably between projects, so regardless of what you need in your curriculum change process, please reach out to us and we can discuss whether our support could be helpful to you.

First Steps in Partnership

If you are considering curriculum changes or have any questions about how we can support you, please do not hesitate to reach out to GMCTL. A member of our curriculum team would gladly have a coffee chat to discuss how to build that buy-in across your faculty, including how we can help.

For more information about the Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund, the Curriculum Design Guide, or to schedule a consultation with one of our curriculum specialists, please email gmctl@usask.ca to be connected with our team.

Title image credit: congerdesign on Pixabay

This article was created with the assistance of AI tools, as described in the GMCTL AI Disclosure Statement.

This resource is shared by the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning (GMCTL), University of Saskatchewan, under a CC BY-NC-SA license. The image was shared by the Province of British Columbia via Flickr with a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.