THE SPIRAL CURRICULUM

A New Feature To The K To 12 Curriculum

Rosemarie Hatuina

THE SPIRAL CURRICULUM

What is a spiral approach?

The spiral approach is a technique often used in teaching where first the basic facts of a subject are learned, without worrying about details. Then as learning progresses, more and more details are introduced, while at the same time they are related to the basics which are reemphasized many times to help enter them into long-term memory.

ROLES OF SPIRAL APPROACH IN TEACHING

A sequencing strategy

A teaching strategy

Basic idea behind spiral progression approach - to expose the learners to a wide variety of concepts/topics ,skills and attitudes that are deemed of “continual concern of everyone “until they are mastered.

A spiral curriculum design is one in which “key concepts are presented repeatedly throughout the curriculum , but with deepening layers of complexity.”

After a mastery of the initial topic, the student “spirals upwards” as the new knowledge is introduced in next lessons, enabling him/her to reinforce what is already learned. In the end, a rich breadth and depth of knowledge is achieved.

With this procedure, two purposes are served:

1. The previously learned concept is reviewed hence improving its retention

2. The topic may be progressively elaborated when it is reintroduced leading to a broadened understanding and transfer of learning.

The Spiral Curriculum was proposed by Bruner,1977

In structuring a course, certain prerequisite knowledge and skills must be first mastered which in turn provides linkages between each lesson as the students “spirals upwards” in a course of study.

Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6

Characteristics Of Living Things

Parts And Functions Of Living Things

a. Humanb. Animalsc. Plants

Interaction of Living Things with the Environment

Humans:Major Organs Of The Body

Care For Them Diseases

Animals,Plants TerrestrialAquaticLife Cycles

Interactions:BeneficialHarmful

Stages Of Growth and Development

Development Of Secondary Sex

Differences in modes Of reproduction in. Human, Animals,Plants

Flowering plants Nonflowering Plants

Human Body System

Musculoskeletal System

Digestive System

Circulatory System Humans, of Animals and Plants

Respiratory System Characteristics of Vertebrates and invertebrates.

Economic importance Caring for animals.

The Learning Spiral

Is a curriculum design framework which will help science teachers construct lessons, activities or projects that target the development of thinking skills and dispositions which do not stop at identification , instead facilitate implementation of the desired performance.

Is a curriculum design tool which will help develop concrete and practical thinking-centered lessons that make students performances of understanding explicit .it maybe used to structure an entire project which can readily fit into the regular curriculum and can help design thinking centered lessons.

The learner-centered approach is characterized by:

Learn with focus on the learners , and learning in a real situation as the teachers facilitate their students to learn from experience , activities and work, leading to the development of learners in all aspects physical, mental, emotional, social and intellectual.

In adopting the spiral approach, the teachers will been enriched with varied experiences in preparing every science lesson and curriculum a proper blending of concepts, skills and values from the natural and physical sciences and appropriately sequenced from a start upward according to the level of difficulty.

One should always remember that one keeps moving upward, but keeps returning to the fundamentals through reviews but adding more.

BRUNER emphasized the gains that can be acquired by developing students powers of analysis ,judgment and memory in order to increase capacity to transfer learning into new students.

His idea was that transfer of thinking processes from one context to another required students to learned the fundamental principles of subjects and to explore ideas on a deeper level rather than just mastering facts and rote learning procedures.

In the spiral progression approach, the first basic facts of a subject are learned without worrying about details.

In spiral teaching, teacher moves upward but keeps returning to the fundamentals