Curriculum Development & Planning

Curriculum Development Definition

• Seen as the collective effort from a school, to create the best possible learning environment both in and out of school for students.
• A series of potential experiences outlined by schools to develop youth’s thinking and behavior as a group

Curriculum as a structured set

• A set of learning tasks which educators refer to as goals and objectives according to Howell and Evans in 1995
• Curriculum defines the content of teaching
• Curriculum is the listing of subjects that are taught in a school

Curriculum as a description

• A series of designed learning objectives and outcomes for a subject
• Specifies what to learn, how to teach it, and how the learning with be implemented and assessed

Curriculum Planning

• Involves preparing in advance, learning opportunities for a group of learners
• Curriculum guide can be a written document that provides this

Curriculum Planning as a process

• The arrangement of curriculum plans and learning opportunities
• Includes preparing for teaching, selecting goals, determining subject matter, selecting materials, setting classroom procedures, and evaluating progress
• Curriculum development is selecting, organizing, executing, and evaluating learning experiences based on the community’s needs, learner abilities, and interests

Curriculum & Resource laboratory

• Curriculum laboratory, also called a workshop, is a place where resources and materials are used by educators
• Resource Unit is a group of suggested activities & materials for a teacher to plan, develop, and evaluate a learning unit

Two Schools of Thought on Curriculum Development

• Essentialist School
• Progressive School

The Essentialist School

• Considers curriculum as rigid and only using subject matter
• Considers every student to be mostly the same, fitting them into an existing social structure and maintaining the conventional way of life
• Discipline is the key motivation, freedom is earned as an outcome of education
• It has an authoritative approach when teaching, assigning lessons and reciting
• Lessons are book-centered, with methods centered around memory, mastery of concepts, and development of abstract thought.
• Does not focus on societal actions or activities
• Gauges results via standardized testing

Traditional Points of View

• Topics are prepared by teachers for students to learn
• Synonymous to the phrase "course study"
• "Permanent studies" refer to grammar, reading, rhetoric, logic, and mathematics for basic education
• See curriculum as written documents, or actionable plans for goals

The Progressive School

• Thinks of curriculum as adaptive with areas of interest
• Student centered, understanding that not every student is the same
• Motivation to achieve is individual
• The teacher stimulates direct learning
• Uses real world experiences to prepare the student for future interactions

The Progressive School approach to learning

• Revisions of goals and constantly updated teaching methods are keys to developing new independent thinking and self-reliance among learners
• Measuring outcomes include many devices, not just subject matter, but also personal values

Progressive Points of View

• Syllabi, courses, subjects, and disciplines can be called curriculum if their written materials are actualized by the learner
• Experiences by the individual
• Every experience a child can have under their teacher
• Experiences in a classroom which teachers’ plan, enact and learn

Theories & Truths in curriculum

• Conflicting educational philosophies influence what is taught
• “Self-evident educational truths” of the past are becoming educational myths; teachers know best & all students should be treated the same
• Underlying principles have changed
• New methods are being developed like programmed instruction, computer assisted instruction, tutorials, and small group instruction

Curriculum Emphasis

• Emphasizes subject matter for the mind, and prioritizes literature, intellectual history, religion, and philosophy
• Emphasizes observable facts in the real world
• Another emphasis is dependence on scholasticism
• Another emphasis is the importance of experience
• Current emphasis is existing choice
• Learners must develop skills learn knowledge, and make good decisions

Ralph Tyler Model Principles

• School purposes.
• Educational experiences tied to a purpose
• Structured experiences
• Assessing the experiences

Hilda Taba’s Grassroots Approach involves

• Figuring out the learner's needs
• Creating learning objectives
• Selecting the learning and organizational content
• Selecting and organizing learning activities
• Evaluating

Tyler's Questions of Curriculum Development provides these 4 steps

• What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?
• What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purposes?
• How can these educational experiences be effectively organized?
• How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained?
• Selection of aims, goals and objectives
• Selection of learning experiences and content
• Organization of Learning Experience
• Evaluating goals that were achieved

Models of Curriculum Development

• Some curriculum experts like Tyler believe the steps are followed in a straight line
• This model is called a linear model
• Some scholars argue curriculum decision making is not a simple linear process
• Wheeler, in 1978 believes it starts at any point and can go back
• Kerr, in 1968 stated that this is a complex set that interacts

Aims & Objectives Selection

• A curriculum has competencies and abilities it wants to instill
• Curriculum must determine the aims to be achieved
• Curriculum aims vary from specific to broad
• Aims are the broad statement, and goals are in specific subjects
• Objectives are specific outcomes in lessons

Factors to Selecting Aims

• Analysis of culture with cultural values
• Learner needs/characteristics
• Subject matter
• The school's philosophy
• Consistency theory of learning

Content & Learning Experiences

• Content is what educators teach, learning experience is an activity which causes students to change
• Select content and experience to achieve the curriculum goals

Factors in Selecting LEarning Experiences

• Validity
• Relevance to Life
• Variety
• Suitability

Selecting content & learning experiences

• Cumulation describes the scenario where learning experiences are different, but lead to a common end/goal
• Multiple learning can provide many outcomes

Factors to Selecting Content

• Validity: the content is related to objectives & the content is true.
• Significance: the content is significant or will lead to a understanding of the concept
• Utility: selected content useful and will lead to the acquisition of useful skill
• Interest: content is interesting to the learner or can be made more interesting.
• Learnability: content is easily acquired and easily understood

Curriculum Approaches

• Technical – Scientific Approaches
• Behavioral-rational Approach
• System-managerial Approach
• Intellectual –Academic Approach
• Non-Technician / Non-Scientific Approach
• Humanistic – aesthetic Approach
• Re-conceptualist Approach
• Reconstructionism
• Eclectic Models

Scientific Approach on Curriculum

• Curriculum developers that include: specialists, principals and coordinators are compared to engineers or architects
• They use empirical methods and instruments during the blueprint process and ensure procedures with quality control

Bases of Technical Scientific Approach

• When the teachers have more professional skills, the curriculum improves
• When teachers participate, the curriculum improves
• Teachers are involved when teachers shares in planning, selecting content ,and are evaluating results
• Communication improve with face to face situations

Behavioural-Rational Approach

• The approach focuses on the means-ends. Curricula from this focuses on how it’s roles will affect its students.

• It assumes that curriculum as the means and instruction as the end is a behavioural orientation.

Systems-Managerial Approach

• Get interest from stakeholders
• Participation of stakeholders
• Converging viewpoints
• Supervise implementations
• Innovation and change

Intellectual-Academic Approach

• Stresses the importance of theories and principles when formulating plans for curriculum
• Influenced by the philosophical ideals of John Dewey

Non-Technical / Non-Scientific Approach

• Flexible or lightly structured with no predetermined objective
• The scope of education or all of the possibilities of education can be predetermined

Humanistic-Aesthetic Approach

• Belief that the more emotional, artistic view of teaching is being lost due a hyperfocused, rationale approach to curriculum

• Believes progressive freedom frees people from authoritarian teachers

Reconceptualist Approach

• Claims scientific teaching models don’t account for the mental states of the person as a whole
• Uses existentialist ideology
• The point of teaching isn’t to control how people learn facts, rather to challenge their current mindset

Reconstructionism

• Schools should always be institutions of social reform
• Over reliance to one method of teaching takes away from needs of society

Curriculum Evaluation

• Systematic process for determining how well designed and implemented a school's teaching is producing desired results
• Measures a set of instructional outcomes compared to pre-specified outcomes according to Tuckman (1979)

Types of Evaluation

• Humanistic, goal free evaluation
• Scientific, purpose driven evaluation

Objectives of Evaluation

• Scope (teaching, program cost effectiveness)
• Timing (formative, summative, impact)
• Method (quantitative, qualitative)
• Level (classroom, school, national)
• Personnel involved (teachers, committees, consultants)