Vertical integration is when learning and outcomes from one course directly feed into the next course, so that the subsequent course builds on these outcomes. This also implies that the preceding course is aware of what is in the subsequent course and does what it can to support it, to make the students ready for future learning.



Vertical integration can take many forms and is more often a form of vertical awareness and not real integration. Awareness is important and is needed to know what should be taught and what has been taught. Unless a course is a random elective, the course should support subsequent courses and leverage what has been taught before and how it has been taught before.

If something has just been taught in the term before, the instructor using it in the second course should not necessarily take primary lecture time or content to re-teach the same topic. That could be left for tutorials and labs for example, or remedial assignment work. The awareness should also include the assessments and how the students performed. Intel on the student behaviour and attitude is also helpful when teaching a class. This only works if the instructors talk regularly and discuss the courses that they teach within a program.

There are additional benefits when doing vertical integration. The students get continuity on how the subjects relate to each other and that the courses are not isolated entities. The students can tell if courses are done with knowledge of each other or not. From a relationship building perspective, seeing the instructors working together in a consolidated, coherent fashion to help the students learn the primary outcomes is a good thing.

It is good to know that you are being taught by a team and that the team has its act together. It can provide motivation and incentive to pay attention and to engage. Knowing what you’re being taught now has later value is important, and just been told it is valuable is not enough; you have to see the value.

It is hard to think of a curriculum that does not have the potential for leveraging the power of vertical (or horizontal) integration. Certain fields have focused on this. For example, the field of medicine has consciously addressed this over time. There are many interesting inspiring chapters and ideas that can be found in medical education and applied elsewhere. A starting point would be Understanding Medical Education (see ref. below). Chapter 5 is devoted to curriculum design, but there are good reflections in other chapters as well.

Potential vertical integration ideas...

• A common example across courses can be used, with the first class introducing the example at the appropriate level and then the second class can take it to the next level (or angle in with a different lens).
• A complementary set of examples can be used between the two courses as well, not necessarily a common example (this type of seamless content noted above can be extended to tests, quizzes, and other forms of assessments).
• A project or assignment can be started in the first class and then used in the next class (if the cohort model is used).

• The first course can discuss where and how the ideas are going to be used in subsequent courses.
• The second course can discuss with the students where it was learned in the first course, the context of learning, and even perhaps the examples or assessments used to test the students’ mastery of the concept.
• The individual instructors can visit and observe where the ideas are used and how the students respond to them, both upstream and downstream of their own course.
• In the ideal situation, the upstream instructor asks the downstream instructor what needs to be emphasized and what kind of practical mastery is expected in the next course.
• In a less than ideal situation, the downstream instructor can be pre-emptive and talk to the upstream instructor about what is needed.
• The downstream instructor can provide feedback to the upstream instructor about retention and mastery.
• Care should be taken to not teach material before its time. For vertical integration, teaching something more than a term before it is used does not make sense.
• If you cannot avoid a gap between the primary delivery and a substantive use of the material later, courses in between should try to incorporate the material somehow.
• In some cases, the upstream and downstream instructors can make guest appearances and even perhaps give a guest lecture in the other’s course.

Further reading

• Hailikari, T., Katajavuori, N., & Lindblom-Ylanne, S. (2008). The relevance of prior knowledge in learning and instructional design. American journal of pharmaceutical education, 72(5), 113. https://doi.org/10.5688/aj7205113
• Swanwick, T., Forrest, K., and B.C. O'Brien eds. (2019). Understanding Medical Education: Evidence, Theory, and Practice. 3rd Ed., Wiley.
• Lam, C.C., Alviar-Martin, T., Adler, S.A., and J. B.-Y. Sim. (2013). Curriculum integration in Singapore: Teachers' perspectives and practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 31, pp. 23-34.