The gateway course for ACU education majors — curriculum design, instructional methods, and your first hours in a real classroom.
EDU 317 is the foundation course for ACU's education majors and the prerequisite for nearly every method and field course that follows. The class studies curriculum design — its history, its underlying philosophies, the persistent problems educators face, and the shape of current curricular programs across U.S. schools.
Alongside curriculum, the course emphasizes methods of instruction. You'll learn to write clear behavioral objectives, plan lessons that match them, and assess whether instruction actually worked. Classroom observations and a 10-hour practicum take the theory into a real school setting, so coursework and field experience build on each other from the start.
Because EDU 317 is the gate to upper-division education courses, students typically complete it in their sophomore or junior year before moving into EDU 300, EDU 415, the SED 313–319 secondary methods sequence, and Structured English Immersion.
Analyze Curriculum Foundations
Trace the historical and philosophical influences that shaped K-12 curricula.
Evaluate Current Programs
Examine prevailing curricular programs against persistent design problems and equity questions.
Write Effective Objectives
Compose clear, measurable behavioral objectives that guide lesson planning and assessment.
Plan Aligned Instruction
Design lessons and assessments that align with stated objectives and address diverse learners.
Observe and Reflect
Document classroom observations and connect them to research-based instructional practice.
Apply Methods in the Field
Demonstrate beginning instructional competencies during the supervised 10-hour practicum.
Curriculum design is, at heart, a question about what's worth knowing and how human beings come to know it. A Biblical Worldview shapes both ends: it takes the dignity and formation of the learner seriously, and it treats truth across the disciplines as worth pursuing with care. In EDU 317, that lens reframes curriculum decisions as more than logistics — they're choices about the kind of thinkers, citizens, and image-bearers a classroom will help form. The methods are still rigorous and research-based; the questions behind them just run a little deeper.
EDU 317 opens the door to ACU's full education sequence. Explore the degree programs that build on it.