D633 Leadership of Curriculum Design and Instruction carries catalog number EDUC 5072 and is worth 3 competency units. It is about evaluating and implementing curricular programs and building aligned systems of curriculum, instruction and assessment at school level. D633 and EDUC 5072 name one requirement. It is the point where curriculum stops being a document you write and becomes a change you have to lead other adults through, which is a different and considerably harder problem.
Three curricula exist in every school
The idea that makes this course make sense is that any school runs three curricula at once. There is the intended curriculum, which is what the adopted materials and the standards say should be taught. There is the taught curriculum, which is what actually happens in each room. And there is the learned curriculum, which is what students walk away with. Leadership of curriculum is the work of narrowing the gaps between them, and the aspects in this course are almost all about one of those gaps.
That framing changes what counts as a good answer. A leader who adopts an excellent programme and does nothing else has improved the intended curriculum and possibly nothing else. The gap between intended and taught is closed by capacity, time, materials and monitoring, not by purchase. The gap between taught and learned is closed by assessment that tells teachers something they can act on. A deliverable that stops at selection has answered the smallest part of the course.
Alignment is the other organising idea, and it has two directions. Horizontal alignment means that within a grade or course, the standards, the materials, the instruction and the assessments all point at the same learning. Vertical alignment means that what a student meets in one year prepares them for the next, with no gaps and no unplanned repetition. Both are checkable, and both are frequently assumed rather than verified.
Everything closes as Competent or Not Competent, with no letter grade and no ordinary grade point average behind it. The 3 competency units describe the share of a six month flat rate term the course represents.
Turning aspects into a leadership deliverable plan
WGU keeps the scoring detail 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 implementation, because evaluating a programme is analytically satisfying and planning how forty adults will change their practice is not.
The budget, worked. Assume six scored aspects and directions pointing near 2,600 words. Reserve 210 words to establish the school and the curricular problem and 160 to close, leaving 2,230 of scored body. Flat that is 372 each. Weight it: 560 to the alignment audit aspect, 490 to the implementation plan aspect, and 295 to each of the remaining four. That comes to 2,230.
Do the audit before you write about the programme. An evaluation that starts from the vendor's description of a programme evaluates the description, and the difference between that and evaluating the materials is obvious to anybody who has done both.
A shape for a curriculum leadership deliverable
Where a template is supplied, use it. Where the arrangement is open, this order keeps evaluation and implementation both visible, which is where the scoring weight sits.
| Section | The leadership question | What makes it scoreable |
|---|---|---|
| Current state | What is taught now, and how consistently across rooms | Evidence from more than one classroom or teacher |
| Alignment audit | Where the standards, materials, instruction and assessments diverge | A mapping with named gaps rather than a general claim |
| Evaluation criteria | What a programme has to do for this school specifically | Criteria written before any programme is examined |
| Program evaluation | How the candidates measure against those criteria | Judged on the materials, not on the sales material |
| Implementation plan | How teaching practice actually changes, and over what period | Phases, time, professional learning and coaching named |
| Resources | Money, minutes, materials and who loses what to fund it | Real numbers rather than a commitment to support |
| Monitoring and evaluation | How you know it is being used and whether it is working | Two signals: fidelity of use and effect on learning |
Splitting monitoring into two signals is what separates a leader from a purchaser. Whether teachers are using the programme and whether students are learning more are different questions, and confusing them produces the classic misreading in which a programme is judged a failure when it was never actually implemented.
Leading adults through a curriculum change
The implementation aspect is the one that most often decides the score, and it is the one where student writing is thinnest, so it is worth being concrete about what belongs in it.
Start with why the change is happening, in terms of students rather than compliance. Teachers who understand the learning problem the change is meant to solve will make sensible local decisions when the materials do not fit. Teachers who only know that a programme was purchased will follow it literally or ignore it, and both outcomes are failures.
Then plan for practice, not for information. An introduction day tells people something. Changing what happens in a classroom takes modelling, planning together, trying something, and coming back to talk about what happened. Any implementation plan whose professional learning is a single event is describing information transfer, and evaluators reading for depth will see that.
Sequence in phases and say what the first phase deliberately leaves out. A plan that changes everything in September is a plan that will be abandoned by November. Naming what will be attempted first, what is being deferred, and what the trigger is for moving on reads as somebody who has led a change rather than described one.
Finally, expect resistance and treat the reasonable version of it seriously. Teachers who resist a new curriculum are frequently protecting something real: a practice that works for their students, time they do not have, or a memory of the last three initiatives that were abandoned. A plan that names the strongest objection and answers it is stronger than one that treats disagreement as an obstacle to be managed.
Evidence for a curriculum leadership deliverable
- Quote the standards you are aligning to from the official document, so the verbs are available when you check materials against them.
- Evaluate programmes from the materials themselves, and treat publisher claims about effectiveness as claims until an independent source supports them.
- Support implementation choices with research on professional learning and change rather than with assertion.
- Use your school's own data with the district de-identified, reported at a level where no teacher or student is recognisable.
- Follow the citation style your directions name, and cite inside audit tables as well as in prose.
What separates Competent from a return
Aspects score independently, so returns here are specific. The three that recur are an evaluation with criteria invented after the fact, an implementation plan made of one training day, and monitoring that only measures outcomes.
- Evaluation criteria are stated before any programme is discussed and are tied to the school's own gap.
- The alignment audit names specific divergences rather than asserting misalignment.
- Implementation is phased, resourced and includes ongoing support rather than a single event.
- Monitoring covers both whether it is being used and whether it is working.
- Resistance is addressed with the reasonable objection named and answered.
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 decides how many courses close, and writing the evaluation criteria before looking at any programme is the cheapest way to protect the most heavily weighted aspect in this course. Where your plan pairs this course with a proctored objective assessment, our boundary does not move: preparation only, never sitting or assisting during an assessment, and portal credentials never requested or handled.
Program chosen and implementation blank?
Send the D633 rubric and your school's curricular gap. You get an alignment audit table, criteria written before the evaluation, and a phased implementation plan with both monitoring signals in it.
Six mistakes that stall D633
- Evaluating features instead of fit. A long list of what a programme includes says nothing about whether it addresses this school's gap.
- Criteria written after the shortlist. Criteria produced once you have a preference will always favour the preference, and it shows.
- Adoption treated as implementation. Buying materials changes the intended curriculum only, and the gaps that matter are downstream of that.
- One training day. Practice does not change from information, and an aspect about professional learning is watching for a cycle rather than an event.
- Monitoring outcomes only. Without a use signal you cannot tell a failed programme from a programme nobody ran.
- No cost. Curriculum change consumes money, planning time and attention, and a plan without those numbers reads as untested.
Three questions students send about D633
Is D633 the same course as EDUC 5072?
How is D633 different from D630 and D631?
Do I need to be an administrator to write this deliverable?
Where D633 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.