Maybelle B. Animas, R.

N
The Word: Curriculum

Latin: “Currere” - Running course

Scotland 1603: Carriage way, road
the set of courses, and their content,
offered at a school or university
Curriculum Organization?

 Process of selecting curriculum

elements form the subject, the current
social life and the students experience
then designing the selected curriculum
elements appropriately so thy they can
form the curriculum structure and type.
Criteria for Effective Curriculum
Organization

 Continuity

 Sequence

 Integration
Curriculum Designs
 A curriculum design is a framework or plan of
action for preparing a course of study or a set of
students’ experiences .It is a deliberate process of
devising, planning and selecting the elements,
techniques and procedures of curriculum.
Curriculum design is a method of thinking.
Importance of Curriculum
Designs
 Curriculum design involves the creation of the set of
operating principles or criteria, based on theory, that guide
the selection and organization of content and the
methodology used to teach that content .With the
accelerated rate of social change, schools are preparing
youth for adulthood in a society not yet envisioned by its
members .Hawley’s words still ring true: “it’s not a question
of whether or not to change , but whether or not we can
control the way we are changing. We are living in an Alice in
an Wonderland world where you have to run just to stay
where you are .To get anywhere you have to run even faster
than that. The pieces on the chess board keep changing and
the rules are never the same.”
Models of Curriculum Designs
 An effective curriculum must be built on a solid philosophical
foundation that answer the question of what educational
purposes the school should seek to achieve. The classical
model for curriculum design, proposed by Tyler in
1949,asked four questions of curriculum planners:
 What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?
 What educational experiences can be provided that are likely
to help attain these purposes?
 How can these educational experiences be effectively
organized?
Models of Curriculum Designs
 How can we determine whether these purposes
are being attained?
 Tyler’s steps for curriculum design included stating
objectives, selecting learning experiences,
organizing the experiences, and evaluating
results. Tyler’s model is most closely aligned with
the educational purposes of preserving the social
order and teaching skills and competencies
needed to function effectively in society.
Principles of Curriculum Designs
 The problems of curriculum change become the criteria for
determining the desirability of a curriculum. A list of the
problems of curriculum development, recapped and stated
as criteria, following:
 Be consistent with the conceptual framework and implement
the conceptual framework commitments.
 Derive and test its concepts and theories in teaching
process.
 Respond to the educational needs of society and the
immediate concerns of students.
 Cope with the knowledge explosion and the short “half-life”
of scientific knowledge
Principles of Curriculum Designs
 Use the logical, precise, effective, and efficient
educational technology that is currently available.
 Use teaching personnel in the most economical
and efficient way (time, energy and money).
 Enable utilization of cognitive teaching input.
 Provide for student testing of learned behaviour in
real situation.
 Produce a graduate capable of delivering creative
teaching care for the next fifteen to twenty years.
 Spend a reasonable length of the time
accomplishing the goals of the curriculum.
Steps in Curriculum Design
 Fiorno and Nowak suggest the following steps in curriculum
design:
(1) Identification of the problem.
(2) Diagnosis of the problem.
(3) Search for alternative solutions.
(4) Selection for the best solutions.
(5) Ratification of the solution by the organization.
(6) Authorization of the solution.
(7) Preparation for adopting of the solution.
(8) Adoption of the solution.
(9) Direction and guidance of the staff.
(10) Evaluation of the effectiveness of the solution.
Establish a Curriculum
Committee
 Persons responsible for curriculum
decisions include administrators
,teachers ,students ,parents ,and
community leaders. Most major
innovations in the public school are
introduced by teachers , state boards or
departments of education, and textbook
publishers and instructional materials
producers indirectly provide educational
leardership.
Categories of Curriculum Designs

 Subject-Centered Curriculum

 Activity/Experience based
curriculum

 Core curriculum
Subject Centered Design
 Subject centered curriculum is a rigid curriculum , based on
specific courses, which mandates specific amounts of
material to be covered over special periods of time
regardless of student abilities or interests. Subject centered
curriculum assign the greatest importance to subject matter
rather than to the students .It consists of having students in
classes for one subjects at a time such as mathematics for
45 minutes, science for 45 minutes. And history for 45
minutes. Three related designs have emerged from subject
centered designs:
 Subject design
 Academic Disciplines design
 Broad Fields design
Subject Design
 This is probably the oldest and most widely used
form of curriculum organization found in schools
and educational systems .This is based on the
classification and organization of subjects matter
into discrete groups, which we have called
subjects .These groupings, which have become
known as school subjects, were initially based on
evolving divisions of labour in research that
produced physics , history, literature and
mathematics and so forth. In more recent times
practical areas such as typing , home economics
and industrial arts have become accepted as
subjects.
Academic Disciplines Design
 This approach to organizing curriculum is essentially a post
second world war phenomenon ,gaining greatest support in
the inherent organization of content, as is the subject design,
the academic discipline design emphasizes the role played
by those distinct entities called academic disciplines .In a
school setting, the content of this design would focus on
what an academician does, that is ,how a biologist , historian
, or a mathematician research is done , how that research is
carried out , how data are analysed, how research is
reported , and so forth. The result , it is hoped ,is that the
school would produce mini versions of academic
disciplinarians.
Broad Fields Design
 This third design was developed to
overcome a perceived weakness in the
subject design that was evident in the
nineteenth and the early twentieth
centuries .Broad field design was
deemed more suited to younger
learners. The broad fields design is
commonly found in primary and lower
secondary schools.
Common Feature In Three Subject
Centered Designs
 Classification and organization of all
contents into subjects or subjects-like
groupings.
 Subjects are clearly defined and
distinguished.
 A hierarchy of subjects is commonly
found according to their perceived value.
 Methodology applied and practised is
largely teacher-centered and expository
in nature
Advantages of Subject Centered Design

 The advantages of subject-centered

curriculum are:
 Students like it , they are used to it and
it fits their idea of what school should be.
 What students learn , they learn well.
 This approach is efficient in a field in
which resources for staff development
are scant.
Disadvantages of Subject Centered Design

 The disadvantages of subject-centered curriculum

are:
 Teachers wouldn’t be able to innovate their
teaching style to help students learn in a creative
way.
 Students simply memorize what they need to
know in order to pas a test , instead of actually
learning it.
 Teachers are teaching the students to think inside
the box in order to pass the exams.
Activity/Experience Based Curriculum

 This approach is based on determine the genuine

needs and interests of learner , which in turn form
the basis of the curriculum. An important claim of
this approach is that “people only learn what they
experience”. According to M.K Gandhi ,education
is the development of all the aspects i.e. body
mind and spirit . So mind without activities can not
develop the personality perfectly .so education
must give importance to activities. Education
,which has no link with life is meaningless.
Activities Under Activity Based Curriculum

 Physical Activities:
These activities aim at physical
development of the child .it includes physical
training ,games and sports.

 Environmental Activity:
These activities includes
nature study ,excursion ,survey , social visit.
These activities develop civic sense and love for
nature in children.
 Constructive Activity:
With these activities love for
work dignity of labor , production efficiency may be
developed. Handwork craft repairing of tools belong
to this category of activities.

 Aesthetic activity:
Music ,arts creative crafts are
included in this type of activities. These provide
opportunities for self-expression and development
of inborn creative faculties.
 Community Activity:
These Activities aim at
community development and include
community projects ,first aid ,social
service , etc these activities also help in
the socialization of the child. The
teacher can provide information
regarding history, geography ,and
economics with the help of these
activities.
Advantages of Activity Based Curriculum

 Advantages of Activity based curriculum are:

 The most important feature of Activity based curriculum is
learning by doing .so this method can fulfill the natural urge
of a growing child on one hand also can help them learn their
lesson.
 The method also promote better understanding of a lesson
among students as they learn the lesson by practicing the
task themselves.
 It inspires the students to apply their creative ideas
,knowledge and mind in solving problems.
 It also helps learner psychologically as the can express their
emotions through active participation in something useful.
Disadvantages of Activity Based
Curriculum
 Activity curriculum method require long term
planning with details of the whole process before
engaging the learners, the teacher has to make
sure that all students have sufficient knowledge
and skills regarding the task they are going to
perform .so this method can not be used on a
regular and daily basis as it involves a lengthy
procedure.
 The objective of this method can be only be
fulfilled if the planning of the lesson is flawless.
Limitations of Activity Based Curriculum

 Activity curriculum attaches too much

importance on activities. It neglects
other activities needed for intellectual
development of the child.
 Personal supervision is needed for
every activity which is not possible in
school.
 Activity curriculum is not applicable to all
stages of education.
Core Curriculum
 The notion behind a core design, usually called a core
curriculum, is that there exists a set of common learnings
(knowledge, skills and values) that should be provided to all
learners in order to function effectively in a society .The core
concept, however, does vary considerably in interpretation
and one writer has suggested that it is possible to distinguish
no less than six forms of the core design. For our purposes,
it is sufficient to understand that a curriculum may be
organized around the idea of a core as a set of learnings
essential foe all students. The emphasis of this approach to
core curriculum was that all students would experience a set
of common and essential learnings that were necessary for
learners to function effectively in society.
Benefits of Curriculum Design
 It Focuses Attention On Goal.
 It Improves the Probability of Success.
 It Improves economy of Time and
efforts.
 It Facilitates Communication And
Coordination of Projects.
 It Reduces Stress.