DATE:25TH 10, 2021

CAT 1
UNIT CODE : TAP 201

REG NO : E122/1528/2017

Lecture : Dr. Muya

Task 1

Importance of historical foundations of curriculum.

History of the curriculum plays a very important role in the development of the nation. It takes long and tedious
time to formulate a good curriculum which represents the need of the society and the experiences of the
past.The following are some of the importance of Historical foundations of the Curriculum:

 The history of the curriculum tell the curriculum planner how to develop and modify the curriculum,
what to teach and what should be the core material of the subjects, what objectives they want to achieve
through the curriculum.
 It tell the curriculum planner on what the teacher should teach, what are the best practices they need to
incorporate in curriculum teaching and what kind of teaching need to be avoid.
 It explains the teacher psychology at different time and how to improve their teaching styles.
 Provides a detail about the learner behavior at different times.
 It also provides information about the psychology of the students, how they learn and what they want to
learn.
 The history of the curriculum guides the future plans because curriculum is always based on the future
demands of the country and the lesson learned through history, tell the curriculum developer not to
repeat the mistake of the past and develop a curriculum which is based on the future need of the society
and international demands. History is the profile of past successes and failures.
 It tells the curriculum developer what not to include in the curriculum. What of lessons can bring no
good to the curriculum and what type of contents material are good for the teaching learning process, so
history of the curriculum eliminate all those useless traditions from the modern curriculum and help the
developer to incorporate what is needed for the curriculum.
 Promotes a sense of freedom and encourage educational reform
 Understand the forces that hinder or support curriculum innovation.
 It allows us to go from now on to the past, get a bigger picture and see ourselves in it, realizing that the
education field must remain dynamic to be effective.
 Using historical resources, students will develop more power of observation, listening, communication,
hypothesizing, problem solving, library skills and interpreting skills.

TASK 2.

The professional foundations of curriculum

Professionals normally teach, research and publish materials through workshops, symposia, seminars,
conferences, projects, exchange programmes, excursions etc. Professionals also interpret curriculum through
design, development, implementation, evaluation and innovation. They use curriculum documents such as the
syllabi, circulars, legal acts, reports, journals, textbooks, minutes, commission reports, schemes of work and
archives among others.

Characteristics of Professionals Include:

Productive personality, critical attitude, measurable responsibility, accountability, transparency and

development conscience. In all, a professional must be balanced, mature and upright person. Such a person
reads widely and wisely. The person is mindful of others’ needs and maintains a guiding personality to develop
others for solving and not creating problems.

The teacher as authority in the profession:

Every time teacher steps into a classroom to teach, they are putting themselves on the ‘firing line’ and students
either shoot at them down or claim them. Students continually assess their teachers informally and the amount
of confidence they have in them depends to a large extent on the perceived level of competence in the subjects
they teach. Students rate very highly their teachers who ‘know their stuff’.

Studies have shown that in some cases, teachers fail to perform efficiently because of the following reasons:

-Lack of adequate preparation

-Poor delivery techniques

-Pitching the lesson above or below academic level of the students

-Insensitivity to the expectations of the students

-Un-called for arrogance in the teacher’s personal qualities as a role model

-A failure in time-management in the teaching process

-Failure to adhere to professional ethics.

-Lack of research experience and interest.

In many instances, the ultimate goal of carrying-out research is to publish in learned documents. Being
published constitutes a vital criterion for promotion.

A Professional teacher is a consultant

Many members of the public and scholars look upon a professional teacher to:

-Give public lessons on academic topics

-Chair functions organized in the community

-Carry out research on relevant issues

-Participate in the local politics

-Act as role models

-Assist with extension work.

Roles of a Teacher
Whether teachers are experienced or not, there is general agreement that using the right methods to teach is
important because teaching forms a significant part of the noble profession, so quality learning depends on the
effectiveness of the approach used. Teaching has become complex due to new variables and constraints
involved in the education options.

In a teaching and learning situation, the following areas receive unchallenged attention:

-Teaching environment

-protracted teaching methods

-Objectives of learning

-Group size and anatomy of students

-Teachers’ like and dislikes in the teaching area.

Methods of Teaching commonly used by professionals to teach are:-

Lecture

The lecture method is just one of several teaching methods, though in schools it's usually considered the
primary one. the lecture method is convenient for the institution and cost-efficient, especially with larger
classroom sizes. this is why lecturing is the standard for most college courses, when there can be several
hundred students in the classroom at once; lecturing lets professors address the most people at once, in the most
general manner, while still conveying the information that they feel is most important, according to the lesson
plan. while the lecture method gives the instructor or teacher chances to expose students to unpublished or not
readily available material, the students plays a passive role which may hinder learning. while this method
facilitates large-class communication, the lecturer must make constant and conscious effort to become aware of
student problems and engage the students to give verbal feedback. It can be used to arouse interest in a subject
provided the instructor has effective writing and speaking skills.

Demonstration

Demonstration, which is also called the coaching style or the Lecture-cum-Demonstration method,[3] is the
process of teaching through examples or experiments.[4] The framework mixes the instructional strategies of
information imparting and showing how. For example, a science teacher may teach an idea by performing an
experiment for students. A demonstration may be used to prove a fact through a combination of visual evidence
and associated reasoning.

Collaboration

Collaboration allows student to actively participate in the learning process by talking with each other and
listening to others opinions. Collaboration establishes a personal connection between students and the topic of
study and it helps students think in a less personally biased way. Group projects and discussions are examples
of this teaching method. Teachers may employ collaboration to assess student's abilities to work as a team,
leadership skills, or presentation abilities.

Classroom discussion

The most common type of collaborative method of teaching in a class is classroom discussion. It is also a
democratic way of handling a class, where each student is given equal opportunity to interact and put forth their
views. A discussion taking place in a classroom can be either facilitated by a teacher or by a student. A
discussion could also follow a presentation or a demonstration. Class discussions can enhance student
understanding, add context to academic content, broaden student perspectives, highlight opposing viewpoints,
reinforce knowledge, build confidence, and support community in learning.

Debriefing

The term "debriefing" refers to conversational sessions that revolve around the sharing and examining of
information after a specific event has taken place. Depending on the situation, debriefing can serve a variety of
purposes. It takes into consideration the experiences and facilitates reflection and feedback. Debriefing may
involve feedback to the students or among the students, but this is not the intent. The intent is to allow the
students to "thaw" and to judge their experience and progress toward change or transformation. The intent is to
help them come to terms with their experience. This process involves a cognizance of cycle that students may
have to be guided to completely debrief.

Classroom Action Research

Classroom Action Research is a method of finding out what works best in your own classroom so that you can
improve student learning.

Excursion.

Excursion method of teaching provides an opportunity to learners to visit different places across the world for
their academic enhancement. More than all that, excursions are a learning tool to enhance the curriculum by
allowing students to better grasp and retain concepts. Learning by doing. They also promote engagement levels,
build confidence, teamwork and create connections.

Experimentation

the experimental method involves manipulating one variable to determine if changes in one variable cause
changes in another variable. This method relies on controlled methods, random assignment and the
manipulation of variables to test a hypothesis.

Example of an experiment is whereby a researcher could perform a study to look at whether sleep deprivation
impairs performance on a driving test. The experimenter could control for other variables that might influence
the outcome, but then vary the amount of sleep that participants get the night before a driving test.

REFERENCES
 Goodson, I. (1988) The Making of Curriculum. London: Falmer Press.
 Goodson, I. (Ed.) (1987) International Perspectives in Curriculum History. London: Croom Helm.
Goodson, I. (Ed.) (1985) Social Histories of the Secondary Curriculum: subjects for study. London:
Falmer Press.
 Kimball, R. (1989) The problems in writing about higher education, in C. Kridel (Ed.) Curriculum
History: conference presentations from the society for the study of curriculum history, pp. 48-65.
Lanham: University Press of America.
 Kliebard, H. (1992a) Forging the American Curriculum: essays in curriculum history and theory.
London: Routledge.
 Kliebard, H. (1992b) Constructing a history of the American curriculum, in P. Jackson (Ed.) Handbook
of Research on Curriculum, pp. 157-184. New York: Macmillan.
 Kliebard, H. (1986) the Struggle for the American Curriculum. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Luke,
C.
 Marshall, John P. The Teacher and His Philosophy. Nebraska: Professional Educators Publications, Inc.,
1973.
 Bigge, Morris L. Learning Theories For Teachers. 3rd ed. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1976
 8Guy R: Lefrancois, Psychology for Teaching, 2nd ed; (California: Wadsworth Publishing Co:, Inc.,
1975), P: 26.
 Ralph W; Tyler, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1974),p. 34