Foundations of Curriculum (Chapter Three) PDF

‫بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيم‬ Chapter three – 1st part foundations of curriculum Dr. Asmaa Zedan el sayed Foundations are the forces that shape the minds of curriculum developers and educators. Studying foundations of curriculum enables specialists to incorporate psychologica...

‫بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيم‬ Chapter three – 1st part foundations of curriculum Dr. Asmaa Zedan el sayed Foundations are the forces that shape the minds of curriculum developers and educators. Studying foundations of curriculum enables specialists to incorporate psychological, philosophical, and social knowledge to increase the probability of students’ learning, retention, and transmission of knowledge. Knowledge of foundations of curriculum also provides a basis for understanding the teaching and learning process.  This helps curriculum specialists identify diversity among learners and basic learners’ needs, adapt different philosophies when dealing with curriculum, and consider how society affects and is affected by curriculum. 1. Psychological Foundations of Curriculum 1. Psychological Foundations of Curriculum Psychological foundations determine learners’ individual differences to support the selection of methods of teaching, content of subjects, and theories of learning. These choices should support the capacities of all the students and guarantee their overall development as stable, educated, and balanced members of the society.  There are three basic learning theories in relation to psychological foundation: I. Behaviorism and the Curriculum Behaviorist theories depend on various aspects of stimulus-response and reinforcements, i.e., conditioning, modifying, or shaping behavior via reinforcement and altering the environment to reach a desired behavior. Behaviorists considered people as reactions to stimuli and reinforcement and environmental factors as influencers on human behavior. Skinner is one of the most known behaviorists who supported the idea of using reinforcement (praise and punishment) to change learners’ voluntary behaviors. In the 20th century, language learning was dominated by behaviorism. The mastery of the language as a subject is given more emphasis than mastering the language as a means of communication. So, language learning is organized in a step-by-step process while using drills and repetition is common. The behaviors are based on prerequisite conditions, resulting in a cumulative process of learning. From a Behaviorist viewpoint, curriculum specialists can increase the possibility that each student will find learning relevant and enjoyable by adopting some procedures including linking the new knowledge to a pleasant experience and modifying negative ones. For example, when new topics or activities are introduced, they should be connected to students’ positive experiences. On the other hand, things about which each student is likely to have negative feelings should be identified and modified, if possible, to produce positive results. Accordingly, to apply behaviorism in learning, careful analysis and sequencing of learners’ needs and behaviors is mandatory. Testing, monitoring, drilling, and feedback are also important. The learning conditions needed for successful outcomes are carefully planned through small instructional steps and sequences of responses that increasingly approximate the desired behavior or learning. The mentioned principles of Behaviorism match today’s basic-skills training programs in reading and language development, as well as methods of individualized instruction, direct instruction, mastery learning, and competency- based education. Looking closely at these programs and methods, it is clear that they involve tailoring instructional materials to learners’ abilities and needs, designing step- by-step activities, and focusing on skill acquisition, repetition, practice, drill, reinforcement, and review. One of the models that correspond to the behaviorist approach to teaching and learning is the Mastery Learning (Block and Anderson Model) that involves nine steps: 1- Clarify: Explain to students what they are supposed to learn. 2. Inform: Teach the lesson, using whole-group instruction. 3. Pretest: Give a formative quiz. Students can check their own papers. This is to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work. 4. Group: Based on results of the test, divide the class into mastery and non-mastery groups (80 percent in the test result is considered mastery). 5. Enrich and correct: Give enrichment instruction to mastery group; give corrective (practice/drill) to non-mastery group. 6. Monitor: Monitor student progress; vary amount of support for each group based on group size and performance. 7. Posttest: Give a summative quiz to non-mastery group. This is to evaluate student learning at the end of your instruction. 8. Assess performance: At least 75 percent of students should achieve mastery by the summative test. 9. Reteach: If not, repeat procedures, starting with corrective instruction (small study groups, individual tutoring, alternative instructional materials, extra homework, reading materials practice and drill). Although behaviorism has contributed to curriculum during the 20th century to a great extent and is likely to continue influencing the curriculum field, we cannot limit discovering more about human learning to some rigid conventions. Hence, perspectives that allow for investigations of the mind were incorporated into behaviorism. Thus, cognitive developmental theories have been integrated into some behaviorists’ approaches to human learning. Thank you