生活課程以「以兒童為學習的主體」、「培養學童的生活課程核心素養」，以及「拓展學童對人、事、物的多面向意義」做為統整性課程設計與教科書設計的三大原則。教科書設計呈現出教師鷹架學生學習的教學取向與學童主動探究學習的歷程等特性，與世界教科書「學習者中心」的教材設計趨勢相聚合。十二年國教生活課程植基在統整課程的設計基礎上，帶入素養導向教學的終身學習與重視學習成效的兩大特徵。除了標榜「學習者中心」的教科書設計原則之外，另外強化三個重點：一、設計一個主題或一個單元結束時的總結性任務；二、強化習作的學習評量角色，並將習作區分形成性評量與總結性評量；三、為課本中的總結性活動或習作中的總結性評量編製評量規準。

The design principles of life curriculum and for writing textbooks are three: (1) based on the idea of “children as active learners”, (2) cultivating the key competencies of the life curriculum, and (3) employing multi-symbolic system during exploring activities and expanding the multi-faceted meaning of objects. Textbooks thus present the characteristics of the teaching orientation of the teacher’s scaffolding of pupils’ learning, and the process of pupils’ inquiry learning. These are converged with the current world trend of the textbook designing-learner-centered approach. The national curriculum of 12-year Basic Education is competency-based, and has two main features, which are life-long learning and seeking after students’ learning outcomes. Beside fulfilling “learner-centered approach”, three design principles of textbooks of the competency-based life curriculum are emphasized: (1) designing a summative task for a thematic unit or a subunit, (2) strengthening the learning assessment role of the worksheets, and distinguishing the assessments as formative and summative ones, and (3) creating the rubrics for summative assessments and the performance of summative tasks, and putting in the teachers’ teaching guide.