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AP&P Committee Training • 2026–2027

How AP&P Reviews Curriculum at AVC

This page supports the annual foundation training. It introduces the common review framework committee members should apply before and during AP&P meetings.

Training Overview

Training Goal

Build consistent committee judgment—not mastery of every regulation in one sitting.

Live Format

Short explanation, one practical scenario, committee discussion, and clear takeaways.

After the Session

Use the quick guide and FAQs as the ongoing reference rather than relying on recall.

1. AP&P’s Role

AP&P is a standing committee of the Academic Senate. It oversees the development, review, renewal, and local approval or recommendation of curriculum within AVC’s governance process. Proposals move through discipline review, dean review, technical review, and full committee review before completing the remaining institutional and state approval steps.

Discipline Faculty

Develop curriculum and exercise subject-matter expertise.

Dean Review

Reviews division-level planning, resources, staffing, scheduling, facilities, fiscal or operational impacts, and the proposal’s readiness to proceed.

Technical Review

Identifies completeness, accuracy, coding, articulation, and process issues before the full meeting.

AP&P

Evaluates academic quality, consistency, student impact, equity, accessibility, and compliance.

Board and State

Complete the required approval and chaptering steps after local faculty review.

2. The Six PCAH Development Criteria

Use the criteria as a framework, not as six disconnected checkboxes.

Appropriateness to Mission

Does the curriculum serve a valid community college purpose and fit AVC’s mission?

Need

Is there a demonstrated student, transfer, workforce, community, or program need?

Curriculum Standards

Are the level, rigor, scope, content, objectives, outcomes, assignments, and evaluation appropriate and aligned?

Adequate Resources

Can AVC realistically staff, schedule, equip, support, and sustain the course or program?

Compliance

Does the proposal meet Title 5, local policy, articulation, coding, and program-specific requirements?

Equity and Accessibility

Does the curriculum reduce unnecessary barriers and reflect AVC’s IDEAA and UDL review procedures?

3. Technical Review Versus Committee Review

Technical Review Usually Addresses

Missing fields, attachments, or approvals
Inconsistent titles, units, hours, codes, or dates
Formatting, grammar, and Coursedog workflow issues
Articulation, C-ID, Cal-GETC, CCN, or COCI documentation checks
Correctable problems that do not require full committee deliberation

Committee Review Usually Addresses

Academic level, rigor, scope, and disciplinary appropriateness
Alignment among COR or program elements
Justification for requisites and enrollment limitations
Student pathway, access, equity, accessibility, and implementation impact
Policy questions and issues requiring faculty judgment

Working principle: Resolve correctable errors before the meeting so AP&P can spend its time on curriculum quality and consequential decisions.

4. The Four-Question Review Lens

Is it complete and internally consistent? Do the title, description, outcomes, objectives, content, assignments, instruction, evaluation, hours, units, requisites, materials, and program requirements tell the same story?
Is it academically appropriate? Does it demonstrate suitable scope, depth, rigor, level, and disciplinary expectations?
Does it support students? Are expectations and pathways understandable? Are unnecessary barriers minimized? Can students reasonably achieve the approved outcomes?
Is it compliant and implementable? Does it meet applicable rules and can AVC offer it as approved?

5. Apply the Review Lens

Practice Scenario

Course Title: Introduction to Data Visualization

Catalog description: Introduction to data visualization for scientific and public communication. Students evaluate graphical choices and create accessible visualizations for varied audiences.

Student Learning Outcome: Create and justify an accessible data visualization that communicates information effectively to a defined audience.

Objectives: Understand data visualization.

Content: Principles of visual design; graph selection; color; accessibility; misleading graphics.

Assignments: Critique a real-world graphic; create a data story; participate in structured peer feedback.

Instruction: Lecture, demonstrations, guided practice, and peer review.

Evaluation: Examinations and attendance.

Equity/accessibility statement: This course supports diversity, equity, and accessibility.

Discuss and Review the Example Feedback

Discuss each question before opening the corresponding feedback. The responses are examples rather than the only acceptable answers.

1. What is already strong?

The catalog description clearly identifies the course purpose and intended audiences.
The Student Learning Outcome is measurable and describes a culminating student performance.
The content supports the study of visual design, graph selection, accessibility, and misleading graphics.
The assignments are authentic and applied: students critique, create, and participate in structured feedback.
The instructional methods include explanation, demonstration, guided practice, and collaboration.
Accessibility is integrated into both the course description and content rather than being treated only as an accommodation.

2. What is a technical or wording correction?

The objective Understand data visualization is not observable or measurable. Replacing understand with a measurable verb is a wording correction when the revision preserves the faculty's intended learning.

Possible revisions include:

Evaluate the effectiveness and limitations of common data-visualization formats.
Select appropriate graphical formats based on data type, purpose, and audience.
Apply principles of visual hierarchy, labeling, contrast, color, and accessibility.
Identify misleading or unethical data-presentation practices.
Critique data visualizations using established design and accessibility criteria.

Important distinction: deciding how many objectives are needed and what learning they should require is a substantive faculty decision, not merely copyediting.

3. What requires substantive faculty or committee judgment?

Whether the Student Learning Outcome accurately represents the culminating learning expected in the course. (Outcomes Committee)
Whether the objectives collectively prepare students to achieve the SLO.
Whether the content is sufficiently detailed to support the objectives and SLO.
Whether the assignments provide appropriate practice and demonstration of the approved learning.
Whether the evaluation methods validly measure conceptual knowledge and applied performance.
Whether the IDEAA and UDL evidence is sufficiently substantive.
Whether the overall scope and rigor are appropriate for the course level.

4. Do the evaluation methods measure the stated learning and assignments?

Not adequately as written.

Examinations may measure conceptual knowledge such as graph selection, misleading graphics, and accessibility principles. However, examinations and attendance do not adequately measure whether students can create and justify an accessible visualization, develop a data story, apply design principles, or use structured feedback.

More aligned evaluation methods could include:

Rubric-based evaluation of data-visualization projects
Written or oral critiques of real-world graphics
A data-story project or presentation
A portfolio of revised visualizations
Explanations or defenses of design decisions
Revision based on instructor or peer feedback
Examinations or quizzes for foundational concepts

Attendance alone does not demonstrate achievement of an objective or Student Learning Outcome.

5. Does the equity/accessibility statement provide representative approaches?

No, not by itself. The statement expresses intent but does not describe representative approaches faculty may use.

Stronger IDEAA evidence could include:

Using datasets and examples representing varied communities and contexts
Examining how data selection and presentation can obscure or misrepresent populations
Allowing students to select datasets connected to their communities, disciplines, or interests
Using transparent structures and expectations for peer feedback

Stronger UDL and accessibility evidence could include:

Providing visual, written, and demonstrated explanations of design principles
Teaching contrast, labels, patterns, captions, and text alternatives rather than relying on color alone
Providing accessible exemplars or templates
Scaffolding projects through drafts, checkpoints, and feedback
Allowing written or oral explanations to accompany visual products

Example revision: Faculty may use varied datasets and examples representing diverse communities and communication contexts; provide visual, written, and demonstrated explanations of design principles; scaffold visualization projects through guided practice and feedback; and teach accessible design practices such as sufficient contrast, descriptive labels, patterns, captions, and text alternatives.

6. IDEAA and UDL Are Related but Distinct

IDEAA Review

Look for representative faculty approaches that accommodate and engage diverse student bodies, advance equitable outcomes, and promote inclusion.

Open IDEAA Guidance

UDL and Accessibility Review

Look for multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression, and separately review representative textbooks and OER.

Open UDL Guidance

Not enough by itself: a general equity statement, an ADA checkbox, DE approval, or “UDL will be used.” The COR should contain or reflect substantive approaches.

7. Committee Member Expectations

Review agenda materials before the meeting.
Communicate with your division and bring relevant discipline feedback.
Focus comments on standards, policy, consistency, implementation, and student impact.
Respect discipline expertise while fulfilling the committee’s institutional responsibility.
Ask for clarification when evidence is incomplete; do not guess.
Use the quick guide and FAQ pages when a question arises.

Closing Takeaway

A strong curriculum committee is not the committee that raises the most objections. It is the committee that applies clear standards consistently, respects faculty expertise, identifies consequential issues, and supports timely implementation in service of students.

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