A great curriculum is often the difference between having students who succeed and students who fail. While you could always blame the students themselves, good teachers don't do things like that. It's far more effective to make the curriculum great and allow the students to use their unique talents within it to succeed. The following are some valuable parts you need to include when you design your curricula, in order to make it truly awesome.

Start Early

The earlier you start on the curriculum, the better you'll do. This is because a great curriculum needs tons of preparation. You can't just throw something together and assume it will work. It needs a lot of careful consideration, both of your goals as an instructor and the probable existing skill levels of your students.

Test How it Works

Without testing, you're just making assumptions. The less you assume, the better your students will do. No matter how well you've thought out your curriculum, sometimes you'll find that some components don't work. Other times, one component will work but detract from another. Always continue to re-evaluate the lesson plans themselves because perfection will never happen.

Allow Varying Skills to be Used

Every curriculum involves using a student's ability to memorize and recall facts. However, many students excel at different skills, such as the creation of interesting and relevant works such as skits, paintings or other ways to express how well they're learning the material. This material can help students to actually learn from each other, and it requires a far deeper level of understanding than simply writing down the "right" word on a work sheet or a quiz.

Let Students Work Together

When you allow your students to work together and even encourage it, you'll often find that their abilities are magnified when they're in a group. Everyone has natural strengths and weaknesses, and ideally the weaknesses of one group member are made up for by the strengths of another. It also helps to stave off the boredom that simple lecturing tends to imply. Talking to an equal and being able to contribute something is a lot more enjoyable and stimulating for most people than listening to someone drone on about the topic. You may also find that you can learn additional teaching techniques from watching and listening to how the students interact with and help each other.