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Influence of concept-based curriculum frameworks
on teachers’ curriculum making:
Preliminary findings from a PhD study
Elaine Toh/ Institute of Education
+ Evolving Educational Context
in Singapore

1997 : Thinking Schools, Learning Nation ( TSLN)

2004: Teach Less, Learn More (TLLM)
Past
Recent Years
 Government & Independent
schools
 Integrated Programme (IP) schools
 Niche schools
 Specialised schools
 Single MOE syllabus
 Diverse school curriculum
 A reduced but more integrated MOE
syllabus
 National examinations:
GCE O & A levels
 IB curriculum
 exemption from O levels in IP schools
 Teachers as curriculum
implementers
 Teachers as curriculum makers
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My Research Problem
: The What?
Understanding By Design Teaching for
(UbD) (2005)
Understanding (TfU) (1998)
 Both originate from the US educational context
 Association for
Supervision & Curriculum
Development (ASCD)
 Harvard University
 Offers systematic & comprehensive guidelines for
curriculum & lesson planning
 Emphasis on conceptual knowledge & understandings
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My Research Problem
: The Why – 2 Main Problems
In using these frameworks:
 Not all welcome these frameworks
 Generally, the Humanities & English teachers are
more receptive while the Maths & Science teachers
failed to understand their relevance & use
 While some experienced teachers struggled, less
experienced teachers adapted with ease.
Many teachers struggled to use these frameworks
together with the MOE syllabus.
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My Research Problem
: The Why – 2 Main Problems
In how these frameworks guide teachers to construct/
reframe the subject knowledge:
 Teachers struggled to reframe the subject knowledge
conceptually
 Teachers with strong subject knowledge are more open
to use these frameworks & better able to rework their
knowledge conceptually.
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UbD & TfU: Concept-based
Curriculum Frameworks
Understanding By Design
Teaching For Understanding
 Big Ideas
 Generative Topics
 Enduring Understandings  Throughlines
 Essential Questions
 Understanding Goals
Erickson’s (2002) Concept-based Curriculum
• Key concepts & increasingly sophisticated generalisations
• Conceptually based questions to elicit conceptual thinking
• Grade level, critical content topic, listed without verbs
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Erickson’s (2002): Structure
of Knowledge
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What UbD, TfU & Erickson claim..
✖
✖
Traditional classroom relies too much
on content, textbooks, memorisation
of facts & practice of skills (Erickson)
Against Tyler’s use of behavioural
objectives
✖
Against use of verbs from Bloom’s
Taxonomy because it limits instruction
to a topical approach (Erickson)
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Because of their training & selection of
content, curriculum planners use
verbs to link content & process skills
✖
UbD: teachers will have difficulty
identifying concepts & conceptual
understanding
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Importance of conceptual
understandings in students’
learning
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Prefers the verb understand
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National curriculum is
beneficial & important in
setting standards &
determining content
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Teachers as active
curriculum makers, having
greater ownership of their
practice
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Kim: On Lesson Planning & Having
Curriculum Discussion with
Colleagues
“.. to make decision on the what to teach
and then why…the how doesn’t matter…
the power in this will be determined by …
how teachers facilitate & get the students to
come to the whatever kind of understanding”
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Kim: Who is she?

37 years in teaching

Varied experience in teaching & geography : in primary
school/ government/ independent/ IP schools/ secondary –
JC (KS3-5)

Taught different types of students : lower ability - gifted
students

Was in curriculum planner in MOE

Was involved in geography teacher training at the NIE

Now in independent, all boys, IP school, teaching Lower Sec
boys & IB students

School staff developer
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Kim: Encounter with UbD?
 Heard
 Did
about it from a former colleague
her own readings on UbD
 Attended
a ASCD conference in Denver Colorado in
2006
 Was
attracted by word ‘understanding’ didn’t know what
essential questions were
 “ To
me, I don’t learn things without understanding… my
school experience was meaningless because I was
subjected to memorising things so I never liked it.”
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Kim as Curriculum Maker
“In the past, my intention was to teach
geography & geographical
understanding… now I think I am
teaching children how to learn &
geography is a medium for me to teach
them how to learn”
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Kim: Views on Knowledge in the
Curriculum
“ … it is important to understand the
structure of knowledge in geography &
how this subject is built upon because
it influences how I teach….hence
teacher’s competency in subject
knowledge is important … it is not the
pedagogy..”
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Kim as Curriculum Maker
“…the lesson focus is not to teach them the
content. I am getting them to see how to
connect knowledge, how to build up
knowledge and see patterns and all… The
students will struggle. It is due to how their
brains has been framed and how the mind
has been trained how learning should take
place”
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Kim as Curriculum Maker
 Sees
her practice as inductive concept teaching:
examine data - see the patterns - question the
meaning - ask why & factors affecting
 Learning
in geog: “ seeing big ideas, seeing
connections, seeing patterns & thinking about how
things link and all”
 Reflections: “
is always about whether to
restructure the flow of the lesson or change /
improve the questions asked”
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Kim : Questions to frame
knowledge
“Whenever
I think of the content I
teach, I think of it in the form of
questions.. I frame everything with
questions. Questions are powerful in
helping me frame the inquiry … & to
reframe a more inquiry mode of
thinking.”
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Kim : Reflecting on her
lesson
“ I find it more powerful now that I aim at their
learning. I now look at the content and look at
how it is learnt and then helps me to design
the lesson in stages to develop that learning &
understanding. In fact it enhances the
geography in my lesson. Rather than in the past,
I would have said : rocks are made up of
minerals… remember that granite has feldspar,
mica and all… sandstone has this… limestone
has this..”
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Kim : Reflecting on her
lesson
“The content is reshaped, refined and reframe
in the way that… how knowledge is built.. It is
asking about how do you know what you
know… like in theory of knowledge.. they have
ways of knowing. I am looking for ways of
knowing the content. If I know that, then I will
translate them into ways of learning the content..”
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Kim : Reflecting on her
lesson
“lesson planning becomes uncovering the ways
of knowing that geographical knowledge such
that you recreate the way of knowing. I unpack
that for my lessons. ”
“ to me it is not the pedagogy because I unpack
their way of learning which will determine how I
am going to present it to the students.”
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Kim as Curriculum Maker
“As teachers… we don’t tell students
the thinking behind the design. We
just get them to do worksheets or watch
a video but we are not telling them how
we will be building their
understanding. I have made students
conscious of that so that they can be
more conscious of their own
learning.”
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Kim: UbD connected with her
own learning
“ I think the whole idea is not UbD but using
more conceptual understanding. Concepts &
conceptual understanding falls into my own
schema of how knowledge is learnt. That is
why it fits so well. I evolve and learn from my
own practices. Talking to people is more
powerful even.”
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What the literature says….
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Concept- led curriculum approach is not new.

Hilda Taba (1962) proposes a sequence in knowledge (specific facts &
processes, basic ideas, concepts & thoughtful systems)
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Stenhouse (1975) believe that it is possible to purely utilise content for
curriculum development
‘ Knowledge has structure, and involves procedures, concepts and
criteria. Content can be selected to exemplify the most important
procedures, the key concepts and areas and situations in which the
criteria hold..( They) are important because they are problematic within
the subject. They are focus of speculation, not object of mastery.
Educationally, they are also important because they invite
understanding at variety of levels’(Stenhouse, 1975, p85)
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What the literature says….
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Conceptual knowledge as troublesome knowledge: Threshold
concepts (Meyer and Land, 2006) – conceptual lenses (Erickson
2002,2007 & 2008)
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Gabler & Schroeder (2003) on types of concept teaching:
Inductive & deductive concept teaching
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Milligan & Wood(2010): teachers continue to focus on
achievement objectives, topics & facts, students have superficial
understandings. Suggest that conceptual understandings as
‘transition points’ of learning
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What the literature says….

Debates on the objectives model focuses on structure, level of
specificity or distinctions in objectives
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Criticisms against objectives model: focus on its purpose & focus
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Stenhouse (1975) on limitations of the process model :
‘ The process model is essentially a critical mode, not a marking
model. It can never be directed towards an examination as an
objective without the loss of quality…The process-based curriculum
pursues understanding rather than grades when the two conflict, and
since grades are attainable without understanding, this penalises the
limited students in terms of opportunities even though it is
educationally advantageous…’ ( Stenhouse, 1975, p95-96)
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What the literature says….
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Irony is that UbD & TfU are process-based frameworks geared
specifically for teachers, they are challenging for teachers
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Stenhouse (1975): teachers are both strength & weakness in process
curriculum model. There is a conflict of interest & change in roles of
teachers in assessment & grading as teacher becomes the critic rather
than assessor.
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UbD(1998, 2005): planning & developing curriculum for understanding
because of subjectivity of understanding goals & backward design
principle changes thinking processes & approach to curriculum design
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Erickson (2007): changes classroom pedagogy from topic to idea
approach.
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Blythe (1998) and Tomlinson in Erickson (2007) observes that teachers
notions of effective teaching, their intellect and imagination may be
challenged by use of these frameworks.
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References
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Erickson, H. L. (2002). Creating Concept-based Curriculum and Instruction : Teaching Beyond the Facts. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press.
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Erickson, L. H. (2007 ). Concept-based Curriculum and Instruction for the Thinking Classroom. California: Corwin Press.
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Erickson, H. L. (2008). Stirring the head, heart, and soul : redefining curriculum and instruction. (3rd Ed.). Thousand Oaks, Calif. ; London: Corwin.
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Wiggins, G. and McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding By Design USA: ASCD.
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Wiggins, G. and McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding By Design USA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
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McTighe, J. and Wiggins, G. (2004). Understanding by Design: Professional Development Workbook. USA Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development
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Blythe, T. (1998). The Teaching For Understanding Guide San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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Taba, H. (1962). Curriculum Development: Theory and Practice. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World Inc.
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Gabler, I. C. and Schroeder, M. (2002). Constructivist Methods for the Secondary Classroom: Engaged Minds Pearson.
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Meyer, J. and Land, R. (2006). Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding : Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge. London: Routledge.
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Milligan, A. and Wood, B. (2010). 'Conceptual understanding as transition points: Making sense of a complex social world'. Journal of Curriculum Studies,
42 (4), 487-501.
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Stenhouse, L. (1975). An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development. London: Heinemann Educational.
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Questions?