From “Big Ideas” to deliberate action: Curriculum revision and alignment in an American special education teacher preparation program

Curriculum design is a complicated and time consuming process, especially when considering multiple standards from national, state, and local levels. This is further complicated for teacher preparation programs that offer a variety of specializations and use multiple delivery formats. Although, many models of curriculum development exist, this paper presents an overview of how one American special education program used the model described by Kame'enui, E. J., Carnine, D. W., Dixon, R. C., Simmons, D. C., & Coyne, M. D. (2002) to articulate and organize key dimensions of the program. Although the model has been often emphasized for K-12 environments, this manuscript describes how it is also useful for the university setting.