School and Teacher Curriculum Reviewer PDF

**Curriculum** - A set of courses and contents an educational institution offers - a ***plan*** (involves a sequence of steps) for achieving goals. - "a plan for providing sets of learning opportunities for persons to be educated." (J. Galen Saylor, William Alexander, and Arthur Lewis)...

**Curriculum** - A set of courses and contents an educational institution offers - a ***plan*** (involves a sequence of steps) for achieving goals. - "a plan for providing sets of learning opportunities for persons to be educated." (J. Galen Saylor, William Alexander, and Arthur Lewis) - "Curriculum is an organized set of formal education and/or training intentions." (David Pratt) - a ***development process*** that: *(1) identifies a philosophy;* *(2) assesses student ability;* *(3) considers possible methods of instruction; (4) implements strategies;* *(5) selects assessment devices; and* *(6) is continually adjusted.* (Jon Wiles & Joseph Bondi) - defined broadly as dealing with **the *learner's experiences***; almost anything planned in or outside of school is part of the curriculum (Rooted by Dewey) and (Hollis Caswell & Doak Campbell) *"a curriculum is all the experiences children have under the guidance of teachers."* - Elliot Eisner describes the curriculum as a *"program"* that a school *"offers to its students,"* a *"preplanned series of educational hurdles and an entire range of experiences a child has within the school."* - *"The experiences in the classroom that are planned and enacted"* (Marsh & Willis) - ***a field of study*** with its own foundations, knowledge domains, research, theory, principles, and specialists. They discuss curriculum in theoretical rather than practical terms (historical, philosophical and social issues) - ***In terms of subject matter*** (math, science, English, history, and so on) or content (the way we organize and assimilate information). They emphasize the facts and concepts of particular subject areas **Syllabus** - a descriptive list of subjects to be taught in class - derived from the curriculum. It is about that list of topics to be taught and learned for a specific period or program, while scheme of work is drawn from the syllabus and broken into pieces to be taken on a termly basis **Lesson Plan** - Further breaking down of work to be done **Difference between Curriculum and Syllabus** **What is Curriculum (Allan Glathorn, 2000)** - A blueprint -- simply means a course of study - A course design -- it is a well-planned sequence of learning experiences occupying several learning sessions and involving some form of assessment of the learner's work - It is a product -- it is the result of careful and systematic planning and writing of framework to guide the teaching and learning process - A basis -- it involves reflecting on and making decisions about the teaching of the entire course well before it begins. **Types of Curricula:** 1. ***Recommended Curriculum*** - almost all curricula found in our schools are recommended. For the basic education, these are recommended by the *Department of Education*, for Higher Education by the *Commission on Higher Education (CHED)* and for vocational education by *TESDA*. These three government agencies oversee and regulate the Philippine Education. 2. ***Written Curriculum*** - Includes documents based on the recommended curriculum. They come in the form of course study, syllabi, modules, books or instruction guides among others. A packet of this written curriculum is the teacher's lesson plan. The most recent written curriculum is the *K to 12.* 3. ***Taught Curriculum*** - From what is written or planned, the curriculum has to be implemented or taught. The teacher and the learners will put life to the written curriculum. The skill of the teacher to facilitate learning based on the written curriculum with the aid of instructional materials and facilities will be necessary. The taught curriculum will depend largely on the teaching style of the teacher and the learning style of the learners. 4. ***Supported Curriculum*** - Support materials that the teacher needs to make learning and teaching meaningful. This includes print materials like books, charts, posters, worksheets, non-print materials like power point presentations, movies, slides models, realia, mock-ups and other electronic illustrations. Supported curriculum also includes facilities where learning occurs outside or inside the four walled building. 5. ***Assessed Curriculum*** - Taught and supported curricula have to be evaluated to find out if the teacher has succeeded or not in facilitating learning. During teaching and at the end of every lesson, an assessment is made (assessment for learning, as learning or of learning). 6. ***Learned Curriculum*** - The positive outcome of teaching is an indicator of learning. This are measured by tools in assessment, which can indicate the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor outcomes. Learned curriculum will also demonstrate higher order and critical thinking and lifelong skills. 7. ***Hidden Curriculum*** - Not deliberately planned, but has a great impact on behavior of the learner - Peer influence, school environment, media, parental pressures, societal changes, cultural practices, natural calamities (factors) - Teachers should be sensitive and aware of this hidden curriculum. Teachers must have a good foresight to include these in the written curriculum, in order to bring to the surface what are hidden. **Curriculum Domains:** - **Curriculum Development** - the step-by-step process of designing and improving the course offered at schools, colleges and universities. Even though each institution will have its own process, the broad stages of the framework consist of analysis, design, implementation, and evaluation - the process of determining what students will learn in a specific course of study. At the broadest level, curriculum developers consider what subjects or topics are appropriate for the learning group. They then drill down into more detail in each subject or topic, setting the learning objectives and goals students will be able to achieve upon completing the course. - **Curriculum Design** - the way we conceptualize the curriculum and arrange its major components (subject matter or content, instructional methods and materials, learner experiences or activities) to provide direction and guidance as we develop the curriculum - In general, a curriculum design should provide a basic frame of reference, a template if you wish, for planning what the curriculum will look like after engaging in curriculum development. - **Planned Curriculum** - translates the school's goals into the subjects that students are expected to learn, the measured objectives of the courses and lessons (often stated in the teachers' unit plans and lesson plans), and the subject's assigned readings. - focuses on goals, objectives, subject matter, and organization of instruction. - **Unplanned Curriculum** - (informal) one that is not intended or stated. - Informal curriculum is unplanned learning experience that occurs in classrooms, in the school compound or when the students interact together with or without the teacher present (UNESCO 2004). - deals with sociopsychological interaction among students and teachers, especially their feelings, attitudes, and behaviors **Curriculum Approaches** - **Behavioral Approach** - The oldest and still dominant approach to curriculum. Logical and prescriptive, it relies on technical and scientific principles and includes paradigms, models, and step-by-step strategies for formulating curriculum. This approach is usually based on a plan, sometimes called a blueprint or document. - **Managerial Approach** - Considers the school as a social system in which students, teachers, curriculum specialists, and administrators interact - Educators who rely on this approach plan the curriculum in terms of programs, schedules, space, resources and equipment, and personnel. This approach advocates selecting, organizing, communicating with, and supervising people involved in curriculum decisions - **Academic Approach** - Referred to as traditional, encyclopedic, synoptic, intellectual, or knowledge-oriented approach - Attempts to analyze and synthesize major positions, trends, and concepts of curriculum - Addresses much more than subject matter and pedagogy; cover numerous foundational topics - **Humanistic Approach** - Curriculum specialists who believe in this approach tend to put faith in cooperative learning, independent learning, small-group learning, and social activities, as opposed to competitive, teacher-dominated, large-group learning - Each child has considerable input into the curriculum and shares responsibility with parents, teachers, and curriculum specialists in planning classroom instruction. - **Postmodern Approach** - focus on education's larger ideological issues. They investigate and influence society's social, economic, and political institutions. Postmodernists are more interested in theory than practical applications. **Sources of Curriculum Design** - **Science as a Source** - Some curriculum workers rely on the scientific method when designing curriculum. Their design contains only observable and quantifiable elements - Problem solving is prioritized. The design emphasizes learning how to learn - **Society as a Source** - Curriculum designers believe that school is an agent of society and should draw its curriculum ideas from analysis of the social situation. Individuals believe heavily in the socialization function of schooling. - Schools must realize that they are part of and are designed to serve to some extent the interests of their local communities and larger society. - **Moral Doctrine as a Source** - Some curriculum designers look to the past for guidance regarding appropriate content. These persons emphasize what they view as lasting truths advanced by great thinkers of the past. Their designs stress content and rank some subjects as more important than others. - **Knowledge as a Source** - Knowledge, acc. to some, is the primary source of curriculum. This view dates back to Plato, who communicated that when the most prized and useful knowledge is coded in writing, it can then be taught to students - Teaching such valued knowledge stimulates and develops the minds of learners. - **Learner as a Source** - Some believe that the curriculum should derive from our knowledge of students: how they learn, form attitudes, generate interests, and develop values. - For progressive curricularists, humanistic educators, and many curricularists engaged in postmodern dialogue, the learner should be the primary source of curriculum design. **Design Dimensions Considerations** - **Scope** - Curriculum content and degree of detail - Curriculum designers must consider a curriculum's breadth and depth of content - Consists of all the content, topics, learning experiences, and organizing threads comprising the educational plan. Scope includes all the types of educational experiences created to engage students in learning. It includes both cognitive and affective learning - A curriculum's full scope can extend over a year or more. A curriculum whose scope covers only months or weeks is usually organized in units (divided into lesson plans). - When teachers and other educators are deciding on curriculum content and its degree of detail, they are considering the curriculum's scope. - By understanding the scope of curriculum, educators can ensure that it meets the needs of the learners and help them achieve their learning goals - **Sequence** - Curricularists seek a curriculum that fosters cumulative and continuous learning. They must decide how content and experiences can build on what came before. They are also influenced by current research on brain development. - *4 Principles:* 1. *Simple-to-complex learning* -- indicates that content is optimally organized in sequence proceeding from simple subordinate to complex components highlighting interrelationships. 2. *Prerequisite learning* -- similar to part-to-whole learning. It works on the assumption that bits of information must be grasped before other bits can be comprehended. 3. *Whole-to-part learning* -- have urged that the curriculum be arranged so that content is first presented in an overview that provides students general ideas of the information on situation 4. *Chronological learning* -- refers to content whose sequence reflects the times of real-world occurrences - **Continuity** - Continuity is vertical repetition of curriculum components - over time the same kinds of skills will be brought into continuing operation; This continuity ensures that students revisit crucial concepts and skills - this is evident in the spiral curriculum; Bruner noted that the curriculum should be organized according to the interrelationships among the basic ideas and structures of each major discipline. For students to grasp these ideas and structures, "they should be developed and redeveloped in a spiral fashion," in increasing depth and breadth as pupils advance through the school program. - **Integration** - refers to linking all types of knowledge and experiences contained within the curriculum plan. Essentially, it links all the curriculum's pieces so that students comprehend knowledge as unified rather than atomized - emphasizes horizontal relationships among topics and themes from all knowledge domains. In some ways, curriculum integration is not simply a design dimension, but also a way of thinking about schools' purposes, curriculum's sources, and the nature and uses of knowledge - It is not just about how the curriculum is structured but also about how we think about the goals of education where the curriculum comes from and how we use knowledge - **Articulation** - the vertical and horizontal interrelatedness of various aspects of the curriculum, that is, to the ways in which curriculum components occurring later in a program's sequence relate to those occurring earlier - *Vertical articulation* usually refers to the sequencing of content from one grade level to another. Such articulation ensures that students receive necessary preparation for coursework. - *Horizontal articulation* (sometimes called correlation) refers to the association among simultaneous elements, as when curriculum designers develop relationships between eighth-grade social studies and eighth-grade English. - **Balance** - educators strive to give appropriate weight to each aspect of the design. In a balanced curriculum, students can acquire and use knowledge in ways that advance their personal, social, and intellectual goals. Keeping the curriculum balanced requires continuous fine-tuning as well as balance in our philosophy and psychology of **learning.** **Representative Curriculum Designs** - **Subject-Centered Designs** - by far the most popular and widely used. Knowledge and content are well accepted as integral parts of the curriculum. This design draws heavily on Plato's academic idea - Among designs, subject-centered designs have the most classifications. Concepts central to a culture are more highly elaborated than peripheral ones. In our culture, content is central to schooling; therefore, we have many concepts to interpret our diverse organizations. 1. **Subject Design** - both the oldest and the best-known school design to both teachers and laypeople. - Teachers and laypersons usually are educated or trained in schools employing it. The subject design corresponds to textbook treatment and teachers' training as subject specialists. It is also emphasized because of the continued stress on school standards and accountability. 2. **Disciple Design** - appeared after World War II, evolved from the separate-subject design. - This new design gained popularity during the 1950s and reached its zenith during the mid-1960s. - the discipline design is based on content's inherent organization. However, whereas the subject design does not make clear the foundational basis on which it is organized or established, the discipline design's orientation does specify its focus on the academic disciplines 3. **Broad Fields Design** - often called the interdisciplinary design - It appeared as an effort to correct what many educators considered the fragmentation and compartmentalization caused by the subject design. Broad-fields designers strove to give students a sweeping understanding of all content areas. They attempted to integrate content that fit together logically. 4. **Correlation Design** - Correlation designers do not wish to create a broad-fields design but realize there are times when separate subjects require linkage to avoid fragmentation of curricular content. Midway between separate subjects and total content integration, the correlation design attempts to identify ways in which subjects can be related, yet maintain their separate identities. 5. **Process Design** - attention is often given to the procedures and processes by which individuals obtain knowledge. - Students studying biology learn methods for dealing with biological knowledge, students in history classes learn the ways of historiography, and students investigating anthropology learn ethnographic procedures appropriate for studying culture and society. - Although advocates of the disciplines design urge students to learn process, other educators are suggesting curricular designs that stress the learning of general procedures applicable to all disciplines. Curricula for teaching critical thinking exemplify this procedural. - **Learner-Centered Design** - All curricularists wish to create curricula valuable to students. In response to educational planners who valued subject matter, educators in the early 1900s asserted that students were the program's focus. - In the learner centered designs, a theme emerges that students are the designers, the makers of what they are experiencing 1. **Child-Centered Design** - believe that students must be active in their learning environments and that learning should not be separated from students' lives. Instead, the design should be based on students' lives, needs, and interests. Attending to students' needs and interests requires careful observation of students and faith that they can articulate those needs and interests. Also, young students' interests must have educational value. 2. **Experience-Centered Design** - Experience-centered curriculum designs closely resemble child-centered designs in that children's concerns are the basis for organizing children's school world. However, they differ from child-centered designs in that children's needs and interests cannot be anticipated; therefore, a curriculum framework cannot be planned for all children. - The notion that a curriculum cannot be preplanned, that everything must be done "on the spot" as a teacher reacts to each child, makes experienced-centered design almost impossible to implement. - It also ignores the vast amount of information available about children's growth and development---cognitive, affective, emotional, and social. - The teacher's task is to create a stimulating learning environment in which students can explore, come into direct contact with knowledge, and observe others' learning and actions. Learning is a social activity. - the emphasis of the design is not on teaching or on learning, but on the activity 3. **Romantic (Radical) Design** - These individuals essentially adhere to Rousseau's posture on the value of attending to the nature of individuals and Pestalozzi's thinking that individuals can find their true selves by looking to their own nature. - Individuals in the radical camp believe that schools have organized themselves, their curriculum, and their students in stratifications that are not benign. The ways schools are, the curricular designs selected or stressed, and the content selected and organized result from people's careful planning and intent. - Radicals consider that presently schools are using their curricula to control students and indoctrinate rather than educate and emancipate. Students in "have" societies are manipulated to believe that what they have and will learn is good and just, whereas students in the "have not" societies are shaped to gladly accept their subordinate positions. 4. **Humanistic Design** - gained prominence in the 1960s and 1970s, partly in response to the excessive emphasis on the disciplines during the 1950s and early 1960s - emphasized that human action was much more than a response to a stimulus, that meaning was more important than methods, that the focus of attention should be on the subjective rather than objective nature of human existence, and that there is a relationship between learning and feeling - **Problem-Centered Design** - focuses on real-life problems of individuals and society. Problem-centered curriculum designs are intended to reinforce cultural traditions and address unmet needs of the community and society. They are based on social issues. Problem-centered designs place the individual within a social setting, but they differ from learner-centered designs in that they are planned before the students' arrival (although they can then be adjusted to students' concerns and situations). 1. **Life Situations Design** - Life-situations curriculum design can be traced back to the 19th century and Herbert Spencer's writings on a curriculum for complete living. Spencer's curriculum emphasized activities that \(1) sustain life; \(2) enhance life; \(3) aid in rearing children; \(4) maintain the individual's social and political relations; and \(5) enhance leisure, tasks, and feelings. - The Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, sponsored by the National Education Association, recommended this design in 1918. 2. **Reconstructionist Design** - believe that the curriculum should foster social action aimed at reconstructing society; it should promote society's social, political, and economic development. These educators want curricula to advance social justice - Aspects of reconstructionism first appeared in the 1920s and 1930s. George Counts believed that society must be completely reorganized to promote the common good. The times demanded a new social order, and schools should play a major role in such redesign. **Teaching Philosophies** 1. **Idealism** 2. **Essentialism** 3. **Perennialism** 4. **Existentialism** 5. **Pragmatism** 6. **Progressivism** 7. **Reconstructionism** 8. **Realism**