Handout - Educ90 - 1. Understanding Curriculum pt.1
Handout - Educ90 - 1. Understanding Curriculum pt.1
Handout - Educ90 - 1. Understanding Curriculum pt.1
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Handout 1:
UNDERSTANDING CURRICULUM (Part 1)
TOPICS:
1. What is curriculum?
2. What are the different forms of curriculum?
3. On what principles curriculum can be based from?
DEFINITION OF CURRICULUM
The word curriculum derives from the Latin currere meaning ‘a course to be run
for a certain goal’. This implies that one of the functions of a curriculum is to
provide a template or design which enables learning to take place.
Curricula usually define the learning that is expected to take place during a
course or programme of study in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes, they
should specify the main teaching, learning and assessment methods and provide
an indication of the learning resources required to support the effective delivery
of the course.
There are different views and different metaphors that define curriculum:
This metaphor assumes that the curriculum should focus on the intended
learning outcomes shifting the emphasis from means to ends (Shubert,
1985). Shubert (1985) further states that “intended learning outcomes
are convenient ways to specify purposes in which sequence of learning
outcomes are set forth” (p. 28). The over emphases on only learning
outcomes puts many other outcomes that are not listed in the curriculum
under a shadow. Teachers consider only those outcomes listed the
expected learning outcomes in the form of the end results of teaching
and learning activities.
There are similar expectations from all the students despite their
background, cognitive levels, and ability to learn different contents. This
image of the curriculum brings all students in a racecourse without
considering where they begin but watching at where they end.
This image assumes that the school curriculum should be directly linked
to the cultural aspects, and it should reflect the culture within the school,
community, and the broader society. According to Shubert (1985), “the
job of schooling is to reproduce salient knowledge and values for the
succeeding generation” (p. 29). The students are not expected to look at
their society through a critical point of view but value its practices and
follow the same knowledge from generation to generation.
This image does not anticipate any radical changes in the society in
terms of conventions, rules, norms, and social and cultural values. This
kind of curriculum image portrays the curriculum in a relatively stable
society. This kind of practice is preferred to maintain the hierarchical
social order with all forms or structures of social classes with political and
social motive to maintain the status quo for some privileged group.
5. Curriculum as experience.
This image assumes that schools should not remain just passive follower
of social practices, but it should be an agent for social reconstruction.
Schools should teach students about various social ills making them
aware of both good and bad practices and motivate them to change or
reconstruct the social practices in order to create a more equitable and
just society. This image of the curriculum is influenced by critical school
of thought such as Frankfurt School. When curriculum is viewed and
planned from this perspective, it may consider that students to be
motivated to take a leadership role in order to end the social evils such
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8. Curriculum as currere.
TYPES OF CURRICULUM
3. Hidden Curriculum
Hidden curriculum refers to the unwritten, unofficial, and often unintended
lessons, values, and perspectives that students learn in school. While the
“formal” curriculum consists of the courses, lessons, and learning
activities students participate in, as well as the knowledge and skills
educators intentionally teach to students, the hidden curriculum consists
of the unspoken or implicit academic, social, and cultural messages that
are communicated to students while they are in school.
4. Null Curriculum
That which we do not teach, thus giving students the message that these
elements are not important in their educational experiences or in our
society. Eisner offers some major points as he concludes his discussion
of the null curriculum. Schools have consequences not only by virtue of
what they do teach, but also by virtue of what they neglect to teach. What
students cannot consider, what they don’t processes they are unable to
use, have consequences for the kinds of lives they lead. From Eisner’s
perspective the null curriculum is simply that which is not taught in
schools. Somehow, somewhere, some people are empowered to make
conscious decisions as to what is to be included and what is to be
excluded from the overt (written) curriculum. Since it is physically
impossible to teach everything in schools, many topics and subject areas
must be intentionally excluded from the written curriculum.
Null curriculum refers to what is not taught but should be taught in school
according to the needs of society. For example, environmental education,
gender or sex education, life education, career planning education, local
culture and history education courses are still empty in some schools.
5. Phantom curriculum
Media and its uses have become important issues in schools. Exposure
to different types of media often provides illustrative contexts for class
discussions, relevant examples, and common icons and metaphors that
make learning and content more meaningful to the real lives and interests
of today's students. In an Information Age media has become a very
strong type of curricula over which teachers and parents have little or no
control. This type of learning has a name and definition. It is called the
phantom curricula. It can be defined as - "The messages prevalent in and
through exposure to any type of media. These components and
messages play a major part in enculturation and socializing students into
the predominant meta-culture, or in acculturating students into narrower
or generational subcultures."
6. Concomitant Curriculum
What is taught, or emphasized at home, or those experiences that are
part of a family’s experiences, or related experiences sanctioned by the
family. (This type of curriculum may be received at church, in the context
of religious expression, lessons on values, ethics or morals, molded
behaviors, or social experiences based on the family’s preferences.)
7. Rhetorical curriculum
It comes from those professionals involved in concept formation and
content changes; from those educational initiatives resulting from
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8. Curriculum in Use
The formal curriculum (written or overt) comprises those things in
textbooks, and content and concepts in the district curriculum guides.
However, those “formal” elements are frequently not taught. The
curriculum-in-use is the actual curriculum that is delivered and presented
by each teacher.
9. Received curriculum
Those things that students take out of classrooms; those concepts and
content that are truly learned and remembered.
Students who use the Internet on a regular basis, both for recreational
purposes (as in blogs, wikis, chatrooms, through instant messenger, on-
line conversations, or through personal e-mails and sites like Twitter,
Facebook, or YouTube) and for personal online research and information
gathering are bombarded with all types of media and messages. Much of
this information may be factually correct, informative, or even entertaining
or inspirational. But there is also a great deal of other e-information that
may be very incorrect, dated, passé, biased, perverse, or even
manipulative.
1. Idealism
This view, applied to education, would imply that teachers would act
as role models of enduring values. The school must be highly
structured, advocating only those ideas that demonstrate those
enduring values. The choice of instructional materials would depend
on the subjects, which constitute the cultural heritage of mankind.
According to Omstein and Hunkins (1988), the hierarchical sequence
places abstract subjects like philosophy and theology on the top.
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2. Realism
The three "Rs" (reading, writing and arithmetic) are also necessary in
a person's basic education.' According to the realists, the subject
experts are the source and authority for determining the curriculum.
3. Pragmatism
4. Existentialism
5. Perennialism
6. Progressivism
7. Essentialism
8. Reconstructionism
consideration the needs of society (not the individual) and all classes
(not only the middle class).
REFERENCES