Curriculum Development and Attributes

Definition of Curriculum Development

Curriculum development is defined as planned, a purposeful, progressive, and systematic process to create
positive improvements in the educational system. Changes or developments happening around the world, affect
the curricula. There is a need to update them to address the society’s needs.
Importance of Curriculum Development
Curriculum development has a broad scope because it is not only about the school, the learners, and the
teachers. It is also about the development of society in general.
In today’s knowledge economy, curriculum development plays a vital role in improving the economy of a
country. It also provides answers or solutions to the world’s pressing conditions and problems, such as
environment, politics, socio-economics, and other issues of poverty, climate change, and sustainable
development.
For instance, for the country to become a tourism hub, then the school curriculum must be developed in such a
way that it will boost the tourism industry. For example, different models may arise such as edu-tourism, eco-
tourism, cultural tourism, techno-tourism, agri-tourism, among others.
The country’s economy can improve through curriculum development. So to develop it, curriculum experts
should work hand in hand with lawmakers such as government officials, governors, mayors, among others.
https://simplyeducate.me/2014/12/13/the-meaning-and-importance-of-curriculum-development/

7 Strategies for Developing a Curriculum

Learning to Build Your Curriculum
Developing a new curriculum is an overwhelming process. However, there are general principles that you can
use as a guideline for preparing one. Here are seven principles to get you started.
Focus on the Students
When writing curriculum, it helps to remember that it's not about writing the best lesson plans or developing a
perfect set of in-class projects and assignments. Instead, it's about meeting the needs of the students in a way
that ensures the material is understood, maintained, and applied in and out of the classroom.
Here are some stepping stones to building a solid curriculum focused on student needs at all learning levels.
 Describe your vision, focus, objectives, and student needs.
 Identify resources.
 Develop experiences that meet your objectives.
 Collect and devise materials.
 Develop plans, methods, and processes.
Ask for Help
Seek out seasoned teachers and ask for their input. There's no need to reinvent the wheel. Professional teachers
are a wealth of information and are often more than willing to share their knowledge with others.
Choose a Supportive Program or Software
Oftentimes supportive computer software, online programs, or basic planning maps are used as a guide.
Avoid Prepackaged Curriculum
Packaged curriculum can be a great learning tool especially if you're looking for a hands-on sample to go by.
However, it's not suggested that you use the curriculum as your set course of action. You will have to re-writing
and restructuring the curriculum so it will fit the learning levels and needs of your students.
Remember U-Turns are Allowed
As a first year teacher developing curriculum for the first time, it's important to realize that it's not going to be
perfect the initial time around. It may not even be where you want it to be the fourth or fifth time around and
that's OK. Even when the finished product is ready for launch, there still may be a few bugs to work out. That's
why it's critical to put the curriculum into motion. Start teaching from it and see if it works. You won't really
know if the assignments, class projects, or even guest speakers are a good fit for your class until they are
presented. Be prepared because some things will work out perfectly while others will need an immediate
facelift. This is all part of the process of curriculum development.
Plan for Feedback and Assessments
Don't forget to build in assessments and time for feedback when developing your curriculum. You will need to
be able to measure how well students are doing. Set aside time to engage students in conversations about the
day's lesson and assignments. Find out what they liked or did not like and what they might want to do
differently. Encourage students to speak up if they didn't understand some of the material presented as well.
At the end of the day, it's about the students and how well they understood the lessons presented and their
ability to understand, retain, and apply it.
https://study.com/blog/7-strategies-for-developing-your-own-curriculum-as-a-new-teacher.html

Attributes of Curriculum Design

Designing curricula follows these attributes:
Curriculum design is purposeful. Its grand purpose is to improve student learning, but it may have other
purposes as well. Whether the purposes are explicit or implied, immediate or long-range, political or technical,
curriculum designers will be as clear as possible about what the real purposes are.
Curriculum design is deliberate. To be effective, curriculum design must be a conscious planning effort. It is
not casual, nor is it the sum total of lots of different changes being made in the curriculum over weeks, months,
and years. It involves using an explicit process that identifies clearly what will be done, by whom, and when.
Curriculum design is creative. Curriculum design is not a neatly defined procedure that can be pursued in a
rigorous series of steps. At every stage of curriculum design there are opportunities for innovative thinking,
novel concepts, and invention to be introduced. Good curriculum design is at once systematic and creative—
feet-on-the ground and head-in-the-clouds.
Curriculum design operates on many levels. Design decisions at one level must be compatible with those at
the other levels. A middle-school curriculum design that is incompatible with the elementary- and high-school
designs will almost certainly result in a defective K-12 curriculum, no matter how good each part is on its own.
By the same token, the curriculum cannot be effective unless the designs of its grades are in harmony.
Curriculum design requires compromises. The challenge is to come up with a curriculum that works well—
perfection is not its aim. In developing a design that meets complex specifications, trade-offs inevitably have to
be made among benefits, costs, constraints, and risks. No matter how systematic the planning or how inventive
the thinking, curriculum designs always end up not being everything that everyone would want.
Curriculum designs can fail. There are many ways in which curriculum designs can fail to operate
successfully. A design can fail because one or more of its components fail or because the components do not
work well together. In most cases, however, curriculum designs are neither wholly satisfactory nor abject
failures. Indeed, a key element in curriculum design is to provide for continuous correction and improvement,
both during the design process and afterward.
Curriculum design has stages. Curriculum design is a systematic way of going about planning instruction.
Curriculum decisions made at one stage are not independent of decisions made at other stages, and so the
curriculum-design process tends to be iterative, various stages being returned to for reconsideration and possible
modification. But recognizing the different tasks and problems at each stage is important in making the process
work.

Curriculum Goals
Curriculum goals are essential to define learning goals. Strictly speaking, goals are not part of a curriculum—
the goals are the ends, while the curriculum is the means—and it is important that the two not be confused. To
make headway in curriculum design, however, it is necessary to concentrate intensely on the issue of learning
goals, identifying those that are credible and usable. To do this properly requires dealing with difficult questions
involving what may be termed investment (What does it cost in time and other resources to come up with a
coherent set of learning goals?); rationale (What is the basis for particular sets of goals? What do we hope to
achieve?); specificity (How detailed do the goals have to be?); and feasibility (How much of it and what will
students be able to learn?). Wrestling with these questions is worth the time it takes because it will help
everyone involved focus on fundamental issues at the very beginning of the effort and maybe even save time in
the long run.
Curriculum Constraints The other side of setting curriculum-design specifications is identifying the
constraints placed on what the design can be like. They may take the form of what will not be permitted and
what conditions must be taken into account. A major impediment to the attainment of curriculum goals is the
lack of sufficient time for instruction—hours per day, days per year. In the history of modern education,
curricula have been expected to serve more and more goals with few ever being eliminated. Some others are
cost, faculty unpreparedness, lack of suitable instructional materials, standardized tests inadequately aligned to
learning goals, college admission requirements, and longstanding traditions.
Curriculum designers should neither ignore constraints nor assume they are insurmountable, but they should try
to identify them carefully. Clarifying the specifications for both goals and constraints throughout the entire
design process raises the likelihood that the ends and means of the final design will be in accord.

Different Types of Curricula

• A classics curriculum that, in early grades, concentrates on preparing students to study in later grades with
increasing understanding and delight.
• A community-centered curriculum in which, at every grade level, students explore traditional subjects in
relation to community needs and problems, with what constitutes “community” expanding over the years from a
neighborhood to a global frame of reference.
• A high-tech curriculum that, from the first year on, exploits the power of state-of the-art information and
communications technologies so that all students can become proficient in finding, gathering, organizing,
analyzing, and communicating information, which, in effect, would put them in a virtual classroom of
worldwide learning.
• A science and technology applications curriculum in which all subjects are studied in the context of
agriculture, materials and manufacturing, energy sources and use, information processing and communication,
health, transportation, and other such general categories of human endeavor.
• A hands-on curriculum in which instruction is largely organized around individual and group projects that
favor active involvement over passive learning—in science, actual investigations over textbook study; in art,
studio work over slide lectures on art history
• A language-immersion curriculum in which a standard liberal-arts curriculum is invested with the
development of language competence that facilitates the participation of Americans in global business and in
cultural and scientific affairs.
• A work-study curriculum in which academic studies are leavened with supervised real-work assignments in
school (teaching, cafeteria, etc.), or in the community as volunteers (in nursing homes, etc.), so that students
develop good work skills and a commitment to community service, in addition to receiving a basic education.
• An inquiry curriculum in which, at every opportunity, study is motivated and organized by students’ own
questions and efforts to find answers themselves.
• An environmental curriculum that uses the description and operation of the physical and biological
environment—and the social issues associated with them—as a focus for learning all subjects at every grade
level.