MPHIL 556 Innovations in Curriculum Development for Social Change and National Development UNIT 2 Dec 2015 UNIT II Terminological Perspectives: Concurrent Themes A. The Official Curriculum • A written curriculum illustrated in scope or sequence and which includes charts curriculum guide, course outlines and list of objectives. • It is a prescribed course of study and other aspects of school life usually documented. • Its purpose is to give teachers a basis of planning lessons, and evaluating students and administrators. Operational/Actual Curriculum • • • • • • What is actually taught by teachers and how its importance is communicated to students. It is referred to as the taught curriculum It describes what actually takes place in the class by way of teaching and learning experiences Hidden curriculum Not generally noticed or acknowledged by school authorities. However, it has deeper and valuable impact on students. D. Null curriculum – Consists of subject matter not taught. • It is the intellectual content or processes that schools do not teach. E. Extra Curriculum (co-curricular activities) • All planned experiences outside of the school subject. • It may take the form of sport clubs and association meetings. • It is sometimes referred to as informal curriculum. • It embodies extra/co-curricular activities F. EXPANDED • The five perspectives of curriculum concerning their relationship to education raise a number of questions (a)How does learning occur? (b)How is it facilitated? (c)what objectives are worth while? (d)How should educational objectives be expressed? (e)What is a good content and how should it be organized and evaluated 1. Traditional Perspective • Education must focus on transmitting the cultural heritage of society. • It should make the wisdom of past generation known to all children. • E.D. Hirsch noted that the basic goal of education in a human community is acculturation. • It teaches communal life • It stresses the use of the text books and the lecture method • This perspective emphasises the aged-old disciplines. 2. Experimented Perspective • It sees curriculum from the experiences of students. • Everything that happen to students influences their lives • These experiences include the student’s thoughts, feelings and tendencies to action that the situation engenders in the individual experience. • The proponents of this school of thought are enlightenment writers such as Hobbers, Descarte Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Froebel. • They emphasise reasoning and impression which are roots of modern psychology. 3. Structure of the Discipline • This emphasises subject matter and the discipline of knowledge. • It underscores the way scholars in the discipline understand their structures. • Over the years, there have been unrelenting debates of what should constitute the structure of various subjects to meet everyday needs. • The student’s active role is scientific inquiry. 4. Behavioural • This perspective was borne out of psychology. • It focuses not on content, but what students are able to do – the behaviour they learn and display. • Proponents are Edward Thorndike Franklin Bobbitt. • Curriculum should be based on life activities. 5. Cognitive • This perspective believes that a person’s knowledge and ideas are innate or inborn. • Teachers are to assist students to recall innate knowledge. • Learning is recollection • The curriculum should allow students to construct their own knowledge based on what they already know. • The students should use knowledge for purposive activities – requiring decision making, problem solving and judgement. G. Curriculum Planning • • • • Cumulative processes and actions that are geared to bring about curriculum change. The planning process involves developing a method to achieve change in the curriculum. Adentwi (2005): Process of making decisions about appropriate learning experiences and content. Planning process precedes curriculum development process. H. Curriculum Construction • • • • This follows curriculum planning. It gives form and meaning to initial decisions and actions at the planning phase. It is the design of key features of the curriculum process. It is a technical activity under-taken by curriculum experts. I. Curriculum Design • The arrangement of components or elements (goals, aims, objectives, learning experiences, content and evaluation) into a pattern/design. • • • Curriculum Development Umbrella term used to describe various terminologies. It addresses all concerns and questions relating to the curriculum team. • • It also focuses on the procedures to be developed, implemented. It means all acts leading to changing the curriculum for better.
