WGU D631: Designing Curriculum and Instruction II

What D631 Really Asks of You

Designing Curriculum and Instruction II (D631) is a graduate course in Western Governors University's Master of Science in Curriculum and Instruction program. According to WGU's official program materials, it examines commonly used curriculum and instructional models and shows how those models are used during the design process to achieve curricular and instructional goals. It also covers designing curriculum and instruction that leverages digital tools to facilitate deep, authentic learning, and strategies for ensuring a curriculum actually succeeds once it reaches classrooms. Designing Curriculum and Instruction I is a prerequisite, so you arrive with the foundations already in place.

Direct answer: D631 is not a proctored multiple-choice exam — it is a set of written performance assessment tasks, so you demonstrate competency by writing to the rubric rather than by memorizing facts. Read each rubric aspect first, name the specific curriculum or instructional model you are applying, and answer every prompt in its own clearly labeled section with concrete classroom detail. Submit early enough to use evaluator feedback, because revision is a normal part of the process, not a failure.

The students who take this course are usually working educators — classroom teachers, instructional coaches, curriculum specialists, district staff — who want the credential and the design vocabulary to lead curriculum work rather than only deliver it. That matters for how you study. You already know how lessons feel in practice; the work here is learning to justify your design decisions in the formal language of established models, with citations, so that a stranger reading your proposal can follow the reasoning.

D631 also sits at a pivot point in the program. The first course taught you how to think about curriculum; this one asks you to choose among competing models, defend the choice, and plan for implementation. The habits you build here — reading the rubric as a checklist, writing in labeled sections, citing sources properly — carry directly into the rest of your master's coursework.

Topic Areas the Performance Assessments Draw From

Based on WGU's published course description and the way the tasks are structured, expect your work to run through these areas:

• Curriculum models — comparing established design models and applying one deliberately to a proposal for new or revised curriculum.
• Instructional models — selecting instructional approaches that fit your learners, content, and stated goals, then explaining the fit.
• Alignment — connecting standards, learning goals, instructional activities, and assessment evidence so each one supports the others.
• Digital tools and authentic learning — choosing technology that deepens student thinking and explaining what it makes possible that a non-digital approach would not.
• Curriculum implementation — anticipating what teachers, students, and systems will need for the design to work in a real building, including support and professional learning.
• Evaluation and revision — describing how you would collect evidence about whether the curriculum is working and what you would change in response.
• Scholarly writing — APA-style citation of the models and sources you draw on, in your own words.

Difficulty and How Long to Budget

Students commonly describe D631 as moderate: the ideas are familiar to experienced educators, and the challenge is precision rather than difficulty. The recurring theme in student discussion is that the hard part is not knowing the content but making sure every rubric aspect is addressed explicitly, in the evaluator's terms, rather than implied somewhere in a paragraph.

Because it is a task-based course with no proctored exam, your timeline depends far more on writing pace and evaluator turnaround than on study hours, and WGU does not publish a typical completion time. A practical way to plan: budget roughly one week per task for drafting plus one buffer week overall for feedback and revision, then adjust once you see how your first submission goes. Students who can write in solid uninterrupted blocks move considerably faster than those working in short evening sessions.

One honest caution about revision. A returned task is the ordinary rhythm of performance assessment courses, and the feedback is usually specific enough to fix quickly. Treat the first submission as a serious draft rather than a final verdict, and the course stops feeling stressful.

A Study Plan Built for Task-Based Courses

Studying for a performance assessment is a different craft from studying for an objective assessment. Adapt the usual evidence-based techniques like this:

Start from the rubric, not the readings. Before you read a page of course material, open the task prompt and its rubric side by side. Turn every rubric aspect into a heading in a blank document. You now have the skeleton of your submission, and every piece of reading you do has a place to land. Evaluators score aspect by aspect, so a paper organized aspect by aspect is far easier to score as competent.

Use active recall on the models. Instead of rereading chapters about curriculum and instructional models, close the book and write from memory: what problem does this model solve, what are its stages, who is it best suited for, and what is its main limitation? Then check what you missed. Being able to produce that summary without notes is exactly the ability the task is measuring, since you must justify why your chosen model fits your context.

Space your model review. Revisit your model summaries briefly on day one, day three, and day seven rather than cramming them the night before you draft. Curriculum and instructional models blur together when studied in one sitting; spacing keeps them distinct so you do not accidentally attribute a feature of one model to another in your writing.

Pre-test yourself against the prompt. Before drafting, write a one-page answer to each rubric aspect from memory. The gaps you feel are your reading list. This is practice testing applied to a writing course, and it is far more efficient than reading everything and hoping the relevant parts stick.

Anchor everything in one concrete context. Pick a specific grade level, subject, and group of learners at the very start and keep it constant across tasks. Vague designs written for a generic student are a common reason a submission reads as underdeveloped. Naming real constraints — class period length, available devices, the standards you actually teach — makes your justification specific and your writing faster.

Use your course instructor deliberately. A short call to ask whether your interpretation of an aspect matches what evaluators look for, before you draft, saves more time than any amount of extra reading. If your program offers cohort sessions on the tasks, attend the one for the task you are currently writing rather than all of them at once.

If you want to sharpen the assessment-alignment thinking this course depends on, the ideas in D184 Standards-Based Assessment pair naturally with D631's alignment work, and the technology-integration reasoning in D295 Designing and Facilitating E-Learning Experiences for K-12 Students covers similar ground to the digital-tools portion. If you are still working through the prerequisite, start with D630 Designing Curriculum and Instruction I.

Where D631 Submissions Usually Go Wrong

• Describing instead of justifying. Explaining what a model is earns little credit. The rubric wants your reasoning for choosing it for your specific learners and goals.
• Answering the prompt implicitly. If an aspect asks for three things, say all three in plain, labeled sentences. Evaluators cannot award credit for what they must infer.
• Choosing a digital tool for novelty. Naming an app is not integration. Explain what deeper thinking the tool enables and how it connects to the lesson's central question.
• Skipping implementation realism. Curriculum plans that ignore teacher training, time, and available resources read as incomplete. Say what support the design would require.
• Loose citation. Graduate work needs sources attributed in APA style and paraphrased in your own words. Similarity flags cost more time than careful writing would have.
• Leaning on shared "passed" task documents. The web is full of uploaded D631 submissions. Using them risks an academic integrity finding and, just as importantly, produces work that does not match your own stated context — which evaluators notice.
• Writing all tasks before submitting any. Submit the first task and read the feedback. The same weakness usually repeats across tasks, and catching it once saves three revisions.

D631 Readiness Checklist

• Can you name the curriculum model you are applying and state, in two sentences, why it fits your learners better than an alternative?
• Can you do the same for your instructional model?
• Can you point to a specific line in your draft that answers each aspect of the rubric?
• Can you describe your target context — grade, subject, learners, constraints — without hedging?
• Can you explain what your chosen digital tool makes possible that a non-digital approach could not?
• Can you trace a clear line from standard to learning goal to activity to assessment evidence?
• Can you list what teachers would need in order to implement your design successfully?
• Can you say how you would know whether the curriculum is working, and what you would revise?
• Is every borrowed idea paraphrased in your own words and cited in APA format?

D631 FAQ

Is D631 an objective assessment or a performance assessment?

D631 is assessed through written performance assessment tasks rather than a proctored objective exam. You submit work that is scored against a rubric, and tasks may be returned with feedback for revision before they are marked competent.

What does Designing Curriculum and Instruction II actually cover?

WGU's official course description says it examines commonly used curriculum and instructional models and how they are used during the design process, covers designing curriculum and instruction that leverages digital tools for deep and authentic learning, and provides strategies for ensuring successful curriculum implementation.

Do I need to finish Designing Curriculum and Instruction I first?

Yes. WGU lists Designing Curriculum and Instruction I as a prerequisite for D631, so the course assumes you already have the foundational curriculum design vocabulary.

How long does D631 take?

It varies with your writing pace and evaluator turnaround, and WGU does not publish a standard completion time. A common approach is roughly a week of drafting per task plus buffer time for revision. Your own timeline will depend heavily on how many hours per week you can protect.

Is D631 hard?

Students generally describe it as manageable but detail-sensitive. The content is familiar to working educators; the difficulty comes from addressing every rubric aspect explicitly and justifying design choices in scholarly language rather than describing them.

What is the single best way to prepare?

Build your draft directly from the rubric, choose one concrete teaching context and keep it consistent across every task, and submit your first task early so the evaluator's feedback can shape the rest of your work.

For more courses in this program area, browse the School of Education guides or the full WGU course guide index. Official course and program details are always available from WGU; this site is an independent study resource and is not affiliated with Western Governors University.