This page offers a more academic or scholarly approach to these
topics. Based on course notes of Craig
A. Cunningham, it is optional.
"Development" describes the process of curriculum-making.
"Design" describes the end result, or the product of
curriculum development.
The Four Steps of Curriculum Development
"The Tyler Rationale"
1.
What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?
2.
What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to
attain these purposes?
3.
How can they be organized?
4. How
can we determine whether these purposes are being attained?
#1: What educational purposes should
the school seek to attain?
What Aims, Goals, and Objectives should be sought?
Educational objectives become the criteria for selecting materials,
content outlined, instructional methods developed, and tests
prepared.
How to write objectives
Objectives often incorrectly stated as activities the instructor
must do, rather than statements of change for students.
Objectives are also listed as topics, concepts, or generalizations;
however, this approach does not specify what the students are
expected to do with these elements such as apply them to illustrations
in his/her life or unify them in a coherent theory explaining
scientific deliberation.
Objectives can be indicated as generalized patterns (To Develop
Appreciation, To develop broad
interests.) These are more goals than objectives.
It is necessary to specify the content to which this
behavior applies.
Should specify the Kind of Behavior and the Content or Area
in which the behavior is to operate.
Examples:
To create a simple web page using a text editor.
To apply Dewey's theory of the child and the curriculum to the
process of developing a curriculum module.
Or:
Upon completion of this module, students will be able to:
...compute the selling price of an automobile given information
about list price, taxes, options, and destination charges
...construct a timeline showing the relationship among at least
20 major events in the Roman empire
...describe the steps necessary for creating complete Web-based
curriculum modules
Example nonpreordinate objective: "Students will attend
a Shakespeare play."
2. What educational experiences
can be provided that are likely to attain these purposes?
Criteria for selecting experiences; are they:
- valid in light of the ways in which knowledge and skills
will be applied in out-of-school experiences?
- feasible in terms of time, staff expertise, facilities
available within and outside of the school, community expectations?
- optimal in terms of students' learning the content?
- capable of allowing students to develop their thinking
skills and rational powers?
- capable of stimulating in students greater understanding
of their own existence as individuals and as members of groups?
- capable of fostering in students an openness to new experiences
and a tolerance for diversity?
- such that they will facilitate learning and motivate students
to continue learning?
- capable of allowing students to address their needs?
- such that students can broaden their interests?
- such that they will foster the total development of students
in cognitive, affective, psychomotor, social, and spiritual
domains?
Curriculum Content
Criteria for selecting content:
- what will lead to student self-sufficiency?
- what is significant?
- Two definitions of "significance":
- having or conveying a meaning; expressive, suggesting
or implying deeper or unstated meaning
- important, notable; consequential
- what is valid (authentic, "true")?
- what is interesting?
- note: student may not even KNOW his own interests
- what is useful?
- what is learnable?
- what is feasible?
3. How can the educational experiences
be organized?
Education experiences must be organized to reinforce each other.
Vertical vs. horizontal organization
Continuity - refers to the vertical reiteration of major
curricular elements.
Reading social studies materials continued up through higher
grades
Sequence - refers to experiences built upon preceding
curricular elements but in more breadth and detail. Sequence
emphasizes higher levels of treatment.
Integration - unified view of things. Solving
problems in arithmetic as well as in other disciplines.
We aim for educational effectiveness and EFFICIENCY.
Most institutionalized education is MASS education: we want
to be able to teach GROUPS instead of individuals.
Most education is DEPARTMENTALIZED, because we expect someone
trained in a specific topic to be more likely to be able to
teach that topic. (This is based upon the notion that
WORKERS will have higher productivity if they do the same thing
over and over again, related to the "social efficiency" theories
of Frederick Taylor.)
Generally, we arrange educational experiences from easiest
to hardest, and from most general to more specific. (There
is some evidence that this is not the best way to teach--that
students are more likely to learn if specific skills or topics
are introduced first.)
4. How can we determine whether these
purposes are being attained?
This question concerns evaluation, which is discussed in WIT
2001's Assessment
of Educational Sites module.
This image summarizes the steps of the Tyler Model.
Different Perspectives on Curriculum
Development
These notes are from Craig Cunningham's "Curriculum
Development and Learning Theories" class at Northeastern.
To access the notes for an entire semester, visit his course
materials page.
In Ornstein and Hunkins, "development"
describes the process of curriculum-making; "design"
describes the end result, or the product of curriculum
development.
Curriculum development produces curriculum designs.
Development can be articulated as a series of steps,
such as:
- define educational purposes
- construct activities/experiences that can meet these purposes
- organize activities/experiences
- evaluate whether purposes have been met
(These are the "steps" in the Tyler Rationale)
Designs can be articulated or described as an arrangement
of curricular "elements"
or "components," such as:
- "aim"
- "rationale"
- "audience"
- "objectives"
- etc.
In discussing "development," it is possible to describe several
competing "approaches" to development.
Ornstein and Hunkins categorize these approaches as technical-scientific,
nontechnical-nonscientific.
Ornstein and Hunkins stress the value of finding a "middle ground"
between these approaches.
Technical-scientific approach
- curriculum as plan or blueprint
- definable process
- activity, or task, analysis
- means/end analysis
- usually "preordinate" (or preordained) objectives
- emphasis on efficiency
- the "Chicago School"
- extremely influential approach
- criticized as too linear, dehumanizing
Tyler approach modified by others, especially Taba, who listed
7 steps:
- diagnosis of needs
- formulation of objectives
- specification of content
- organization of content
- selection of learning experiences
- organization of learning activities
- evaluation and means of evaluation
Taba also wanted TEACHERS to be primary curriculum developers
Hunkins adds initial step of "conceptualization and legitimization,
involving deliberation of the nature of curriculum and its value
Hunkins also adds "feedback loops" among various steps, showing
that curriculum development is an iterative process
This approach has found new life since mid-1980s as "Outcome-based
Education."
Nontechnical-nonscientific approach
- questions some assumptions of technical-scientific approach:
- questions universality, objectivity, logic
- t-s approach abstracts knowledge from context
- t-s approach overemphasizes articulation of aims
- t-s approach too linear
- t-s approach takes modernism too seriously
- stress personal, subjective, aesthetic, heuristic, and
transactional nature of curriculum
- stress focus on LEARNER, not on "products" of education
- view learning as holistic
- student as participant in curriculum development
- denies logical positivism
- may stress "nonpreordinate" objectives (open-ended outcomes:
"Students will be transformed through their participation
in the high ropes course.")
- Examples:
- Glatthorn's Naturalistic Model
- Assess the alternatives
- Stake out the territory
- Develop a constituency
- Build the knowledge base
- Block in the unit
- Plan quality learning experiences
- Develop the course examination (or other assessment
tools)
- Develop the learning scenarios
- The Deliberation Model
- "deliberation is the essential process engaged in
curriculum development. Through deliberation, individuals
engage in curriculum decision making."
- celebrate social dimension of curriculum work
- acknowledges circularity of development process
- involves acknowledgment of eternal "incompleteness"
of curriculum
- Proceeds generally from PROBLEM to PROPOSALS to
SOLUTION (with CONTEXT)
- Noye's six-phase deliberation model
- public sharing
- highlighting agreement/disagreement
- explaining positions
- highlighting changes in position
- negotiating points of agreement
- adopting a decision
- Hunkins "Conversational Approach"
- Free association
- Clustering Interests
- Formulating Questions or Curricular Focuses
- Sequencing Questions or Curriculum Focuses
- Constructing Contexts for the Focuses
- Post-positivist/post-modern methods
- embraces uncertainty, chaos, allowing order to
"emerge"
- curriculum should help students search for "instabilities"
- curriculum should aim for 'dissipative structures'
rather than specific ends
- "Autopoiesis refers to the characteristic of
living systems to continuously renew themselves
and to regulate this process in such a way that
the integrity of their structure is maintained.
Whereas a machine is geared to the output of a
specific product, a biological cell is primarily
concerned with renewing itself." (Jantsch, E [1980].
The Self-Organising Universe. Oxford:Pergamon,
p. 7)
- "But if he invests himself - the most intimate
event of all - in the enterprise, the outcome,
to the extent that it differs from his expectation
or enlarges upon it, dislodges the man's construction
of himself. In recognizing the inconsistency between
his anticipation and the outcome, he concedes
a discrepancy between what he was and what he
is. A succession of such investments and dislodgements
constitutes the human experience." (Kelly, G.
[1970]. A Brief Introduction to Personal Construct
Psychology. In: D. Bannister [ed.] Perspectives
in personal construct theory. London: Academic
Press, p. 18)
- These theories do not result in a specific model
(usually), but emphasize the social, and EMERGENT
quality of curriculum
Participants in Curriculum Development
Process
Possible participants
- teachers
- students
- principals
- curriculum specialists
- associate superintendent
- superintendent
- boards of education
- lay citizens
- federal government
- state agencies
- regional organizations
- educational publishers
- testing organizations
- professional organizations
- other groups
Curriculum Design
What are the "parts" of a curriculum, and how do they interrelate?
Most curricula include:
- aim, goals, objectives
- subject-matter
- learning experiences
- evaluation approaches
Some curricula also include:
- needs assessment
- rationale
- audience
- prerequisites
- materials
- discussion of learning theory
Relationship between "curriculum" and "instruction"
Doll: instructional planning is part of curriculum
design concerned with learning experiences
Horizontal and Vertical Organization
- Horizontal deals with scope and integration: side-by-side
arrangement of activities
- Vertical deals with sequence and continuity: longitudinal
placement of activities
- Notion of "spiral curriculum"
Design Dimensions
- Scope: breadth and depth of content
- Sequence: how do experiences ensure continuity?
- issue of whether to get sequence from subject field
or developmental stages
- sequence principles:
- simple to complex
- prerequisite learning (part to whole)
- whole to part (overview followed by specifics)
- chronological learning (world-related)
- content-related
- learning-related
- learner-related
- utilization-related
- Continuity: recurrence, repetition
- Integration (linkages among subject-matters)
- takes place "only" within learners
- driving focus on "theme-based" schools
- Articulation: interrelated of aspects of curriculum (vertical
or horizontal), including assessment
- Balance between:
- child-centered and subject-centered curriculum
- needs of individual Vs those of society
- needs of common education Vs specialized education
- breadth and depth of content
- traditional vs. innovative content
- needs of unique range of pupils regarding learning
styles (added by CAC: balanced with need for teachers
to have consistent expectations for all)
- different teaching methods and educational experiences
- work and play
- community and school
Types of Curriculum Designs
In developing specific learning activities for a given set
of objectives, curriculum designers need to decide whether they
want to place the subject-matter, the learners, or problems
at the center. The following sections discuss each category
of activity.
Subject-centered
Many learning activities in schools emphasize subject-matter
or academic disciplines. Either a particular subject-area, the
broader themes of a discipline, interdisciplinary concepts or
themes, the coronations among two or more subject areas, or
particular processes can serve as this organizing center.
In each case, the characteristics of the subject-matter, and
the procedures, conceptual structures or relationships which
are found within or among the subject-matter, dictate the kinds
of activities that will be selected.
In centering activities on subject-matter, designers have to
avoid the possibility that activities will not “fit” with a
given learner or set of learners. This possibility results from
the fact that subject-matter, at least as formulated my subject-matter
or discipline experts, is often highly abstract. Experts tend
to utilize schemas and categorizations (taxonomies) which have
little apparent relationship to the experiences of the uninitiated.
Trying to teach 10 year olds about insects utilizing the schemas
utilized by entomologists may be counterproductive. Therefore,
curriculum designers need to look for ways of linking subject-matter
to students own experience, and concentrate on the developmental
structure of the subject-matter (that is, the sequence in which
the subject-matter is most easily and naturally learned).
Designers who are developing a curriculum organized around
a given subject-area (for example, World War II) will
look at the facts, concepts, and skills related to, or encompassed
by, that subject area, and plan activities that will lead students
from their prior experiences into mastery of the elements of
the subject area.
A variant of the subject-area-centered curriculum is one that
is focused on a discipline. In this case, the center
of the curriculum is the conceptual structures and processes
that define the discipline and inform the work of people within
the discipline. Students engage in activities that imitate
the activities of scholars in the field. For example,
history or sociology students may write research papers that
utilize primary source materials; chemistry students will perform
key experiments from the history of chemistry; or literature
students will write, edit, and perform their own plays.
(cf. Bruner).
The problem with discipline-centered curriculums is that they
are likely to ignore the knowledges and skills that lie between
and among the various disciplines but which may be central in
the lives or futures of the students. For example, students
need to learn the relationship between science, technology,
and culture; these relationships are usually ignored by the
sciences themselves. One way around this problem is to
center activities not on a given discipline but on a broad
field including several disciplines. Obvious examples
are “social studies,” general science, and integrated mathematics,
which merge several separate “fields” into an interdisciplinary
subject area. These broad fields, or interdisciplinary subject
areas, allow for more correlation, integration, and holism than
strict disciplinary studies.
Broad fields can also be defined around conceptual clusters,
such as “Science, Technology, and Society,” Darwinism, The Renaissance,
Ancient Greece, or Political Economy, or overarching themes,
such as “Colonialism” or “Rituals.” The various concepts, skills,
and attitudes related to these clusters of concepts can be “mapped”
utilizing a concept map or “web” (O+H p 248) which can then
serve as the template for the development of a web site. The
interrelationships among the subject areas and topics involved
in the broad field or in the specific implications of an overarching
theme can be the basis for activities in which students compare
and contrast related areas, developing interdisciplinary understandings
and metacognitions which can serve to organize the complexity
of real-world knowledge.
Web sites designed to support interdisciplinary or thematic
units might include a wide selection of resources, along with
a menu of activities or essential questions designed to foster
student inquiry into relationships the exist among these resources.
A final way that subject-matter can be the organizing center
of a curriculum is to focus on certain processes, such
a “problem-solving,” “decision-making,” “computer programming,”
or “questioning.” Each of these processes can involve a wide
variety of subject-matters or specific problems and issues.
A variety of activities can guide students toward increasingly
sophisticated models of the process—models that include the
ways in which the process is varied to meet differing goals.
Learner-centered
Dewey’s emphasis on native impulses of the child (socialize,
construct, inquire, create)
Negotiated curriculum
Interest-centered curriculum
Freierian dialogic education
Hunkins: disrupt the status quo of students’ understanding
Humanistic
Can emphasize development of fully-functioning students, through
focus on subjective, feeling, perceiving, becoming, valuing,
growing (Maslow); curriculum encourages the tapping of personal
resources of self-understanding, self-concept, personal responsibility
(Carl Rogers)
Confluent education: strive to blend subjective and intuitive
with the objective
Curriculum should provide students with alternatives from which
they can choose what to feel
Participation, nonauthoritarian
Development of self as most important objective
Transcendent education
Concept of wholeness of experience
Give students opportunity to take a journey, to reflect on that
journey, and to relate that journey to others, past, present,
future, emphasizes dispositions of humans for hope, creativity,
awareness, doubt and faith, wonder, awe, and reverence (O+H
p. 257)
Problem-centered
Planned prior to arrival of students, but willing to adjust
to fit needs of students
Problem can be interdisciplinary
Life situations
core designs
social problem/reconstructionist designs
Social problems, social reconstructionism; educators potentially
affect social change through curriculum development
Engages learner in analyzing severe problems facing mankind
Furthering the good of society
Example problems (Clift and Shane, quoted in O+H p 262).:
What policies shall govern our future use of technology?
At a global level, what shall be our goals, and how can we reach
them?
What shall we identify as the “good life”?
How shall we deploy our limited resources in meeting the needs
of various groups of people?
How shall we equalize opportunity, and how shall we reduce the
gap between the “haves” and “have-nots”?
How can we maximize the value of mass media, especially television?
What shall be made of psychological, chemical, and electronic
approaches to behavioral modification?
What steps can we take to ensure the integrity of our political,
economic, and military systems?
What, if anything, are we willing to relinquish, and in what
order?
And, what honorable compromises and solutions shall we make
as we contemplate the above questions?
Issue for discussion:
Ornstein and Hunkins write (p. 237-38):
Even though design decisions are essential, it appears that
curricula in schools are not the result of careful design
deliberations. In most school districts, overall curricular
designs receive little attention. Curriculum often exists
as disjointed clusters of content organized as particular
items that frequently duplicate and/or conflict with other
items. Robert Zais has noted that many courses in the
schools curricula are really the result of current 'educational'
fashion and not careful deliberations about design.
Do you agree with this statement? Does it describe
your school district's overall curriculum? What barriers
exist to paying more attention to curriculum design?
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