Planning’s Core Curriculum: Knowledge, Practice, and Implementation

Abstract

We examine the core curricula of the master’s degree programs of thirty planning schools in the United States and Canada and discuss patterns in core requirements. We compare current planning core curricula to those described more than fifteen years ago by John Friedmann and explore several questions surrounding core curricula, planning practice, and the demands of academic legitimacy. The article concludes with a brief case study highlighting the implementation of a new core curriculum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Educating Boundary Crossing Planners: Evidence for Student Learning in the Multistakeholder Regional Learning Environment

“…Scholars are well aware of the need to incorporate realworld planning practices in planning curricula to prepare future students for their profession (e.g., Angotti, Doble, and Horrigan 2011;Dalton 2007;Edwards and Bates 2011). Indeed, different authentic learning environments have been developed, that is, learning environments that represent the contemporary planning practice and that provide students with the opportunity to develop their professional competence in a real-life context (Newmann and Wehlage 1993).…”

Commentary: Alternative Cultures in Planning Research—From Extending Scientific Frontiers to Exploring Enduring Questions

“…For example, books called The Good City have been published by Jacobs (2011), Donnison (1980) and Lynch (1984. There is also a subset of such work on enduring questions in planning education-for example, what do planners need to know (Edwards and Bates 2011;Alexander 2001)? Writing is typically done alone or in pairs and extensive background is often provided in written outputs.…”

Learning and teaching in the regional learning environment : enabling students and teachers to cross boundaries in multi-stakeholder practices

“…Repeated and additional evidence for student learning in the RLE exposes the potential of the RLE to prepare planning students for their key professional tasks in setting up and facilitating multi-stakeholder processes for which they should be able to work across the boundaries of multiple practices, disciplines, and perspectives of a variety of stakeholders involved (Booher & Innes, 2002;Bourner, 2010;Edwards & Bates, 2011).…”

“…Angotti et al, 2011;Baum, 1997;Booher & Innes, 2002;Dalton, 2007;Edwards & Bates, 2011;Friedmann, 1996;Seltzer & Ozawa, 2002). As a result, different authentic learning environments have been developed that attempt to represent the contemporary planning practice, and that provide students with the opportunity to develop their professional competence.…”

“…Dalton, 2007;Edwards & Bates, 2011;Sletto, 2010). Encouraging students to work in close collaboration with multiple stakeholders is expected to stimulate their development of boundary crossing competence (Walker & Nocon, 2007;Wenger, 2000; see also Chapter 2).…”