How Can Learning
Experiences Be Organized
For Effective Instruction?
By Ralph W. Tyler
Presented by
Paul Corcoran & Linda Wolf
Organization


The procedures for organizing learning
experiences into units, courses, and
programs.
Educational experiences must be
organized in order to reinforce the
learning process.
Vertical & Horizontal Relationships

Vertical is going from grade level to
grade level based upon content.

Horizontal is integrating different content
within the same grade level.

Consequences of experiences not
relating.
Criteria for Effective Organization



Continuity
Sequence
Integration
Continuity

Vertical reiteration of major curriculum
elements.

Repeated opportunities to practice skills.

Repetition of concepts.
Sequence

Each experiences is built upon the
preceding experiences and goes more
broadly and deeply into the content.

Increasing the complexity of skill.

Higher levels of treatment with each
successive learning experience.
Integration

Horizontal relationship of curriculum
experiences.

The students increasingly get a unified
view which unifies behavior in relation to
the elements.
Elements to Be Organized

Identify the elements of the curriculum which
serve as the organizing threads.

The threads will serve as an organizing
element in achieving continuity, sequence
and integration.

For example: Concepts, Values and Skills
Organizing Principles

Extend, broaden, and deepen concepts for planning
major curriculum elements.

Criteria, continuity, sequence, and integration apply
to the experiences of the learner.

Logical is what the expert understands and knows.

Psychological is a scheme of development that is
meaningful learner.
Other Organizing Principles





Increasing breadth of application
Increasing range of activities included
The use of description followed by analysis
The development of specific illustrations
followed by broader and broader principles to
explain these illustrations
The attempt to build an increasingly unified
world picture from specific parts which are
first built into larger and larger wholes.
The Organizing Structure

Largest Level of Structural Elements

Intermediate Level

Lowest Level
Largest Level of Structural
Elements




Specific Subjects
Broad Fields
Core Curriculum
Undifferentiated Structure
Intermediate Level

Sequential Courses

Single Semester Courses or Year Units
Lowest Level

The Lesson

The Topic

The Unit
Achieving Desirable Organization

Any structural arrangement that provides
for larger blocks of time under which
planning may go on has an advantage
over a structural organization which cuts
up the total time into many specific units,
each of which has to be planned with
some kind of transition and consideration
of the work of other units.
The Process of Planning a Unit
of Organization





General scheme of organization
General organizing principles
Daily lessons, sequential topics, or
teaching units
Flexible plans or source units
Pupil-teacher planning