D631 Designing Curriculum and Instruction II is catalog number EDUC 5070 and is worth 3 competency units. It takes the common curriculum and instructional models and puts them to work in the design process, using digital tools to support deep and authentic learning. D631 and EDUC 5070 name one requirement. Where the first course judged somebody else's curriculum, this one produces yours, and the difference shows up immediately in how much harder it is to hide a weak decision.
Design runs backwards or it does not run
The single organising idea in curriculum design is that you start from the end. Decide what students should be able to do, decide what evidence would convince you they can do it, and only then plan the learning experiences. Almost every weak unit plan in this course was built the other way round, beginning with activities the writer liked and attaching outcomes to them afterwards. The tell is always the same: an assessment that measures something narrower or different from the stated goal.
Working backwards has consequences that students find uncomfortable at first. Activities that do not build toward the evidence have to be cut, including good ones. The assessment has to be written before the lessons, which feels like doing the hardest part first because it is. And the goal has to be stated at the level of transferable understanding rather than as a list of topics covered, because a goal written as coverage cannot generate an assessment that shows anything.
The technology strand attaches here rather than sitting alongside. A digital tool earns its place in a design when it does something the design needs and that would otherwise be impossible or slow: reaching an audience beyond the room, collecting evidence continuously, letting students manipulate a model, giving access to a student who could not otherwise participate. A tool chosen first, with a purpose attached later, is the technology version of the activity-first failure and it is just as visible.
Design work here is scored Competent or Not Competent, with no letter grade and no ordinary grade point average attached to it. The 3 competency units are a measure of term share rather than of hours, and a design course tends to use more of them than the number suggests.
Turning aspects into a design deliverable plan
Scoring detail sits inside your Course of Study rather than the public catalog, so count the aspects on your rubric first. Each scores separately and each has to reach a 2 for the task to pass. The aspect students most often lose here is the justification aspect, because designing is absorbing and explaining why each decision was made feels like paperwork afterwards.
The budget, worked. Assume seven scored aspects and directions pointing near 2,800 words alongside the design artefacts. Reserve 220 words to establish the context and the learners and 160 to close, leaving 2,420 of scored body. Flat that is 345 each. Weight it: 540 to the aspect covering the design artefact itself, 460 to the technology rationale aspect, and 284 to each of the remaining five. That totals 2,420.
Write the justification alongside each decision rather than at the end. A rationale section assembled after the design is finished tends to explain what you did rather than why, and those are scored differently.
A shape for a designed unit
Where a template is supplied, use it exactly. Where the arrangement is open, this order follows the design logic and keeps each aspect visible.
| Stage | What you produce | The decision it locks in |
|---|---|---|
| Learner and context | Who these students are, what they bring, what constraints the setting imposes | Stops a design that could not be taught here |
| Transferable goal | What students should be able to do beyond this unit, standard-aligned | Everything downstream is judged against this |
| Evidence of learning | The culminating task and the criteria that will judge it | Written before any lesson exists |
| Checkpoints | The formative evidence gathered along the way and what each one triggers | Prevents a unit that only discovers problems at the end |
| Learning sequence | The experiences in order, each earning its place against the goal | Any activity that fails the test is cut |
| Technology decisions | Each tool, the purpose it serves, the alternative if it fails | Rules out tool-first design |
| Access and support | How the design works for the full range of learners in the description | Built in rather than added afterwards |
| Rationale | Why each of the above, tied to the models and research you applied | The aspect that most often decides the score |
The alternative-if-it-fails column in the technology row is a small addition with a large effect. Networks go down, accounts do not provision, a platform changes its free tier. A design that names a fallback reads as written by somebody who has actually run a lesson on a device cart.
Authentic tasks that are actually authentic
Deep and authentic learning is easy to claim and harder to build, and evaluators reading this course see a great many tasks described as authentic that are ordinary assignments with a real-world topic bolted on.
Four properties separate the real thing. There is a genuine audience beyond the teacher, or at least a plausible one that shapes the choices a student makes. There is a real purpose, which means the work would be worth doing even if it were not graded. There is meaningful choice about approach, so that two students could produce defensibly different responses. And the outcome is genuinely uncertain, so the task cannot be completed by following a procedure to a known answer.
Test your own task against those. Writing a letter to a senator that never leaves the classroom has a simulated audience, which is acceptable if you say so, but claiming it is authentic when nobody will ever read it overstates the design. Designing a solution to a problem that has one correct answer already known to the teacher is a procedure with a story attached. Neither is a disaster; describing them accurately in your rationale is what protects the aspect.
Depth deserves the same honesty. A task is deep when it requires students to connect ideas, transfer a concept to an unfamiliar situation, or defend a position against a counterargument. Length is not depth. A three week project that consists of collecting facts and formatting them is a long shallow task, and calling it a deep learning experience invites a challenge you cannot answer.
Sourcing in a design course
- Name the design model you are applying and cite its source rather than describing it generically, since the aspect usually asks which model and why.
- Quote the standards you are aligning to from the official document, so the verbs are available for checking against your assessment.
- Support learning experience choices with research rather than preference, particularly claims about what a technique does for understanding.
- Cite the tools you propose, including any terms that affect student data, and keep student information out of platforms your school has not approved.
- Follow the citation style your directions require, and cite inside the rationale where a decision borrows from a published model.
What separates Competent from a return
Aspects score independently, so a design deliverable normally returns for one thing. The three that recur are an assessment that does not measure the stated goal, a sequence containing activities with no line back to the goal, and a technology section that lists tools without justifying them.
- The culminating assessment measures the transferable goal, not a narrower proxy.
- Every learning experience in the sequence can be traced to the goal or the evidence.
- Each tool has a purpose, a rationale and an alternative.
- Access is designed in rather than described as an afterthought.
- The rationale explains reasoning rather than restating the plan.
Performance assessment work at WGU can be revised and resubmitted with no grade penalty, so a return costs calendar rather than standing. Inside a six month flat rate term calendar is what decides how many courses close, and writing the culminating assessment before the lessons is the single decision that prevents the most common return in this course. Where your plan pairs this with a proctored objective assessment, our line is unchanged: preparation only, never sitting or assisting during an assessment, and no request for portal credentials.
Unit built and the assessment does not fit?
Send the D631 rubric and your goal. You get a backward design map, a culminating task tested against the goal, and technology decisions with rationale and fallbacks written in.
Six mistakes that stall D631
- Designing forwards. Activities first, outcomes attached later, produces a unit whose assessment measures something else.
- A goal written as coverage. Students will learn about the water cycle generates no assessment, because there is nothing a student would be able to do.
- Tool first. Building a unit around a platform you wanted to try is the most recognisable failure in the technology aspect.
- Calling a long task deep. Duration and cognitive demand are separate, and evaluators check the second one.
- No formative checkpoints. A unit that gathers no evidence until the end cannot be adjusted while it is running.
- Access added at the end. Supports appended after the design is finished usually work against the structure, and it shows.
Three questions students send about D631
Is D631 the same course as EDUC 5070?
Do I need to take D630 first?
How much technology does the design need?
Where D631 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 1 current WGU program. Open a program page for the complete standard path and term positions. The live Degree Plan remains authoritative after transfer credit, substitutions, and mentor planning.
The assessments, one by one
The public catalog does not publish this course's PA/OA identity or task count. WGU Tutors publishes at most one PA manual per course and only from a WGU-controlled public rubric. Until that source exists, PA help begins from the student's real Course of Study and OA support remains preparation only.