Curriculum Whats your definition? Visit our website

Curriculum

What’s your definition?

Visit our website http://ced.massey.ac.nz


Initially, the word came from the Latin currere, which means

“the course to be run”


The curriculum of a school, or course, or a classroom can be conceived of as a series of

planned events that are intended to have educational consequences for one or more

students.

A Definition(Read Eisner page 31- middle of page33)


•Educational•Noneducational•Miseducational

Dewey


•The ideal•The entitlement•The intended•The available•The implemented•The achieved•The attained

The Curriculums•The Explicit•The Implicit •The Null

Curriculum Presage

Activities and forces which influence curriculum developers in their

curriculum decision-making tasks.



•Normative: the values to which the educational program is directed.•Descriptive: the concepts and generalizations that are taken into account in planning the school programme

A Theoretical Perspective to Curriculum


•The realization of aims that are considered worth-while(what are these in the NZC?)

Normative


•Concepts, rules of thumb, perspectives and frames of references of what ought to be(can you identify these in the NZC?)

Descriptive


•Philosophy: what is real? What is good? What is true? How do we know what we know?•Sociology & Culture: curriculum as a social and cultural activity. Assumptions, ideas, values, knowledge and attitudes.•Psychology: educational objectives, student characteristics, learning processes, teaching methods, evaluation

Foundation Sources


Curriculum Conceptions•Academic Rationalist•Cognitive Processes•Humanistic•Social Reconstructionist•Technological•Eclectic


To enhance intellectual abilities in those subject areas most worthy of study – Academic not social. That schools should expose students to the accumulated wisdom acquired through a study of academic subjects not a curriculum that deals with social needs (drug ed. Etc.)Mainly a teacher-centred approach.

Academic Rationalist


•The mind is like a muscle, you need to develop it. •Learning to learn & strengthen intellectual facilities•Process vs content, problem solving•Student centred and teacher centred approaches

Cognitive Processes


•To provide intrinsically motivating experiences to enhance personal development•Holistic•Self actualizing activities and experiences•Teacher provides the supportive environment – facilitator, resource person, supporter…

Humanistic


•School curriculum should effect social reform and help produce a better society•Fostering of critical discontent within learners – exposure to controversial issues/problems•Group activity…

Social Reconstructionist


Alignment of two or more reasonably compatible conceptions.

Eclectic


•Rational/Objective Based•Cyclical•Dynamic/Interactive

Curriculum Models


•Subject Centred•Learner Centred•Problem Centred•Core designs

Curriculum Design


•The ideal•The entitlement•The intended•The available•The implemented•The achieved•The attained

The Curriculums•The Explicit•The Implicit •The Null


Are we willing to address the complexities or will we grab hold

of superficial solutions?

Complexity vs Superficiality


•What are the drivers behind the NZC?•Whose values and ideas do they reflect?•What conceptions of curriculum can you identify?•What are the contradictions?•What is flexible and within what boundaries?

What you might want to think about now…


•What are the drivers behind your ideas and decisions around curriculum?•What values and ideas do they reflect?•What conceptions of curriculum do you identify with?•What curriculum models do you prefer?

What you might want to think about now…


If we can unpack and truly understand the curriculum, identify our own values and conceptions around

curriculum, then, and only then, can we have effective intelligent discussion, debate and negotiation when

designing our school based curriculum.

Education is about compromise


Curriculum change does not occur if treated as a mechanical or bureaucratic task or something that will automatically happen simply if good materials are made available (Installation). Teachers have their priorities, the school possesses its own equilibrium, and the organization has numerous ways of providing superficial accommodations to foreign intruders without making any significant alterations.

Diffusion vs Installation


Defined as the process whereby developers conceptualise and organise the features of the

curriculum they wish to construct:•curriculum intent (what you wish to achieve);•conceptualising the design (what it will look like);•organising the sequencing of tasks (how to construct the curriculum); and•arranging the process of implementation and evaluation.

Curriculum Planning


“A well conceptualised approach to the process of curriculum development is an

effective use of resources and hence time will be profitably spent on substantive

curriculum planning and design.” (Print, pg 93)

Documents

Curriculum Whats your definition? Visit our website