Principled curriculum
design
WSDN Curriculum Forum
14 March 2014, Downlands School
Tom Middlehurst, Head of Research, SSAT
@Tom_Middlehurst
The educational landscape
Discussion
How would you describe the current educational
landscape, in your role as a deputy head?
Setting
the scene
Some ancient history
Education Reform Act 1988
National curriculum
• Attainment targets
• Programmes of study
• Assessment arrangements
The national curriculum
1. The curriculum for every maintained school shall
comprise a basic curriculum which includes a) provision for religious education for all registered
pupils at the school; and
b) a curriculum for all registered pupils at the school of
compulsory school age (to be known as “the
National Curriculum”) which meets the requirements
of subsection (2) below.
Components of the national curriculum
2. The curriculum referred to in subsection (1)(b) above
shall comprise the core and other foundation subjects
and specify in relation to each of them a) the knowledge, skills and understanding which pupils of different
abilities and maturities are expected to have by the end of each key
stage (in this Chapter referred to as “attainment targets”);
b) the matters, skills and processes which are required to be taught to
pupils of different abilities and maturities during each key stage (in this
Chapter referred to as “programmes of study”); and
c) the arrangements for assessing pupils at or near the end of each key
stage for the purpose of ascertaining what they have achieved in
relation to the attainment targets for that stage (in this Chapter referred
to as “assessment arrangements”).
Duties of the secretary of state
1. It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State so to
exercise the powers conferred by subsection (2) below
as a)
to establish a complete National Curriculum as soon as is reasonably
practicable (taking first the core subjects and then the other
foundation subjects); and
b)
to revise that Curriculum whenever he considers it necessary or
expedient to do so.
2. The Secretary of State may by order specify in relation to
each of the foundation subjects—
a) such attainment targets;
b) such programmes of study; and
c) such assessment arrangements;
3. An order made under subsection (2) above may not
require—
a) that any particular period or periods of time should be allocated during any
key stage to the teaching of any programme of study or any matter, skill or
process forming part of it; or
b) that provision of any particular kind should be made in school timetables for
the periods to be allocated to such teaching during any such stage.
What is
curriculum?
Why do we educate young people?
Broad views on the philosophy of education (Williams,
1961)
 Transmission of culture (e.g. Arnold)
 Preparation for work (e.g. OECD)
 Personal empowerment (e.g. Freire)
 Preparation for citizenship (e.g. Council of Europe)
Curriculum: an evolving context

The courses taken (Scottish HE, late 17th century)

Four questions (Tyler, 1949)



What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?

What educational experiences … are likely to attain these purposes?

How can these educational experiences be effectively organized?

How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained?
“All the learning which is planned or guided by the school, whether it is
carried on in groups or individually inside or outside the school.” (Kerr, 1968
p. 16)
“the school curriculum (in the wider sense) is essentially a selection from
the culture of a society.” (Lawton 1975 p. 7)
The role of teachers (Stenhouse 1975)


“A curriculum is an attempt to communicate the
essential principles and features of an educational
proposal in such a form that it is open to critical scrutiny
and capable of effective translation into practice.” (p. 5)
The proposal should have three parts:
a) In planning
b) In empirical study
c) In relation to justification
In planning
1. Principles for the selection of content—what is to be
learned and taught.
2. Principles for the development of a teaching strategy—
how it is to be learned and taught.
3. Principles for the making of decisions about sequence.
4. Principles on which to diagnose the strengths and
weaknesses of individual students and differentiate the
general principles 1, 2 and 3 above to meet individual
cases.
In empirical study
1. Principles on which to study and evaluate the progress
of students.
2. Principles on which to study and evaluate the progress
of teachers.
3. Guidance as to the feasibility of implementing the
curriculum in varying school contexts, pupil contexts,
environments and peer group situations.
4. Information about the variability of effects in differing
contexts and on different pupils and an understanding
of the causes of the variations.
Wiliam’s principles of curriculum design
•
A good curriculum is:
 Balanced
 Rigorous
 Coherent
 Vertically integrated
 Appropriate
 Focused
 Relevant
Balanced: which subjects?
“Typical”
Interesting alternatives
 English
 Drama
 Mathematics
 Dance
 Science
 Chess
 Technology
 Engineering
 Modern foreign languages
 Geology
 Geography
 Astronomy
 History
 Media studies
 Music
 Art
 Physical education
 Religious education
 Law
 Psychology
 Sociology
 Politics
Rigorous: subjects, disciplines or skills?

Disciplinary habits of mind are important, specific,
powerful ways of thinking that are developed through
sustained engagement with the discipline.

Mathematics: transformation and invariance

History: provenance and context

Statistics: dispersion as well as central tendency

Sociology: structure and agency
Rigorous: C21st skills?



Cognitive competencies

Cognitive processes and strategies

Knowledge

Creativity
Intra-personal competencies

Intellectual openness

Work ethic/conscientiousness

Positive core self-evaluation
Inter-personal competencies

Team-work

Leadership
Pellegrino and Hilton (2012)
Coherent: subjects or themes?

Subject-based curricula
support disciplines but tend to
undermine coherence across
different aspects of learning

Theme-based curricula support
coherence, but tend to
undermine disciplinary
development
Coherent: what are reading skills?
A manifold, contained in an intuition which I call mine, is
represented, by means of the synthesis of the
understanding, as belonging to the necessary unity of selfconsciousness; and this is effected by means of the
category.
What is the main idea of this passage?
1. Without a manifold, one cannot call an intuition ‘mine.’
2. Intuition must precede understanding.
3. Intuition must occur through a category.
4. Self-consciousness is necessary to understanding .
Hirsch (2006)
Coherent: what are reading skills?
John walked to first, stole second, got bunted over to third,
and reached home on a sacrifice fly.
How many outs were there when John got to the plate?
a) 0
b) 1
c) 2
Coherent: lost in translation?
Comprehension depends on constructing a mental model
that makes the elements fall into place and, equally
important, enables the listener or reader to supply
essential information that is not explicitly stated. In
language use, there is always a great deal that is left
unsaid and must be inferred. This means that
communication depends on both sides, writer and reader,
sharing a basis of unspoken knowledge. This large
dimension of tacit knowledge is precisely what is not being
taught adequately in our schools.
Hirsch (2009 loc. 176)
Coherent: what are reading skills?
(Scarborough, 2001)
Coherent: skill is content; content is skill
Five propositions about academic skills (Hirsch, 2009)
1
The character of an academic skill is constrained by the limitations of
short-term working memory.
2
Academic skills have two components: procedures and contents.
3
Procedural skills such as turning letters into sounds must initially be
learned as content, along with other content necessary to higher-order
skills.
4
An advance in skill, whether in procedure or content, entails an advance
in speed of processing.
5
A higher-order academic skill such as reading comprehension requires
prior knowledge of domain-specific content; the higher-order skills for that
domain does
not readily transfer to other content domains.
Coherent: SOLO


SOLO taxonomy (Biggs & Collis, 1982)
 Structure of observed learning outcomes
 Levels of structure
 Unistructural
 Multi-structural
 Relational
Cause and effect in history
 Single cause
 Multiple causes
 Multiple interacting causes
Vertically integrated: emphasis on
progression
In which order would you teach the areas of the following
shapes (currently arranged alphabetically)?
Parallelogram
 Rectangle
 Square
 Trapezium
 Triangle

Learning hierarchies
Vertically integrated: learning hierarchies




Universal
 Addition before multiplication
Natural
 Multiplication before division
 Differentiation before integration
Arbitrary
 Areas of triangles before areas of parallelograms
Optional
 The Romans before the Vikings
Vertically integrated: the spiral curriculum
The “spiral curriculum.” If one respects the ways of thought
of the growing child, if one is courteous enough to translate
material into his logical forms and challenging enough to
tempt him in advance, then it is possible to introduce him at
an early age to the ideas and styles that in later life make
an educated man. We might ask, as a criterion for any
subject taught in primary school, whether, when fully
developed, it is worth an adult’s knowing, and whether
having known it as a child makes a person a better adult. If
the answer to both questions is negative or ambiguous,
then the matter is cluttering the curriculum.
Bruner, J. (1960). The Process of Education
Vertically integrated: kinds of spiral


Kinds of spiral
 Trivial: anything can usefully be revisited
 Deep: spirals are an important part of a curriculum
Inclusion criteria
 You might need this later
 You will need this later
 This is useful now, even if you do not go further
 You will need this later, and you will be significantly
disadvantaged if you do not learn it now
Vertically integrated: backward design



The tragedy of life is that one can only understand life
backwards, but one must live it forwards
(Søren Kierkegaard)
In the same way, curricula need to be designed
backwards, but delivered forwards
Should a curriculum be specified in terms of
 Experiences?
 Outcomes?
 Both?
Vertically integrated: dance curriculum
Through dance, learners have rich opportunities to be
creative and to experience inspiration and enjoyment.
Creating and performing will be the core activities for all
learners, and taking part in dance contributes to their
physical education and physical activity. Learners develop
their technical skills and the quality of their movement, and
use their imagination and skills to create and choreograph
dance sequences. They further develop their knowledge
and understanding and their capacity to enjoy dance
through evaluating performances and commenting on their
work and the work of others.
Scottish Government. (2007). “Curriculum for Excellence: expressive arts experiences
and outcomes” p. 5.
Appropriate: 860+570=?
Leverhulme Numeracy Research Programme
1.00
Over 5 years, the increase
in facility is 75%—an
average of 15% per year.
0.90
0.80
Facility
0.70
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
In other words, in a class of
30, only four or five children
learn this each year.
0.20
0.10
0.00
33
6
7
8
9
Age (years)
10
11
12
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SD = chronological age/10
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Appropriate: levels of facility
SD = chronological age/4
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Appropriate: age or stage
Curriculum
specified:
+
Supports coherence
across subjects
Year by year
Encourages “highreliability” teaching
—
Restricts freedom for
teachers to plan different
sequences
Promotes (requires?)
atomisation of curriculum
Allows teachers to plan
different sequences
Difficult to ensure strong
cross curricular links
Encourages a focus on
‘big ideas’
Allows unnecessary
differentiation
By key stage
36
Focused: successful education
The test of successful education is not the amount of
knowledge that a pupil takes away from school, but his
appetite to know and his capacity to learn. If the school
sends out children with the desire for knowledge and some
idea how to acquire it, it will have done its work.
Too many leave school with the appetite killed and the
mind loaded with undigested lumps of information. The
good schoolmaster is known by the number of valuable
topics which he declines to teach.
(Sir Richard Livingstone, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, “The
purpose in education” 1941)
Focused: Harlen’s 10 big ideas of science
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
38
All material in the Universe is made of very small particles.
Objects can affect other objects at a distance.
Changing the movement of an object requires a net force acting on it.
The total amount of energy in the Universe is always the same but energy can
be transformed when things change or are made to happen.
The composition of the Earth and its atmosphere and the processes occurring
within them
The solar system is a very small part of one of millions of galaxies in the
Universe.
Organisms are organised on a cellular basis.
Organisms require a supply of energy and materials for which they are often
dependent on or in competition with other organisms.
Genetic information is passed from one generation of organisms to another.
The diversity of organisms, living and extinct, is the result of evolution.
Focused: Harlen’s 10 big ideas about
science
1
Science assumes that for every effect there is one or more causes.
2
Scientific explanations, theories and models are those that best fit the
facts known at a particular time.
3
The knowledge produced by science is used in some technologies to
create products to serve human ends.
4
Applications of science often have ethical, social, economic and political
implications.
Relevant: informed choice



About what to learn (Curriculum)
About how to learn (Pedagogy)
Degree of choice should be influenced by



Consequences (for the individual and for society)
Maturity
Consequences of choices (and especially poor choices)
about what is to be learned are generally greater than
choices about how learning should be achieved, so


For younger learners, many if not most learning outcomes need to be nonnegotiable. As they get older their wishes should become predominate their
interests (progressive lowering of the “safety net”)
From the earliest age, however, learners should be involved in decisions
about how they learn best.
Relevant: informed choice about curriculum

Intrinsic factors





Extrinsic factors



What is the subject really like?
Authenticity of experience
Habits of mind
Developing identity (e.g., mathematics, plumbing)
“Critical filters” for particular careers
Financial rewards
Consequences


Closing down of options (“leaky pipes”)
Sensitive periods
Relevant: informed choice in maths
Torricelli’s
trumpet
Wiliam’s principles of curriculum design
•
A good curriculum is:
 Balanced
 Rigorous
 Coherent
 Vertically integrated
 Appropriate
 Focused
 Relevant