CURRICULUM MEANINGS/ CONCEPTS,

NATURE, PURPOSE AND IMPORTANCE

 It is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the

educational process.
 It often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view
of the student's experiences in terms of the educator’s or school's
instructional goals,
 This includes:
 the units and lessons that teachers teach;
 the assignments and projects given to students;
 the books, materials, videos, presentations, and readings used in a course;
 and the tests, assessments, and other methods used to evaluate student
learning.
Curriculum may also encompass a school’s academic requirements for
graduation, such as the courses students have to take and pass, then number of
credits students must complete, and other requirements.

ACCORDING TO ORNSTEIN AND HUNKINS

Curriculum can be defined as:
 1. Plan for achieving goals
2. Dealing with the learner’s experiences
3. Dealing with people4. As a field of study with its own foundations,
knowledge, domains, research, theory, principles, and specialists
5. In terms of subject matter.

SOME DEFINITIONS OF CURRICULUM

 Daniel Tanner
Curriculum is planned and guided set of learning experiences and
intended outcomes, formulated through systematic reconstruction of
knowledge and experiences under the auspices (endorsement and guidance)
of the school, for the learners’ continuous and wilful growth in personal
social competence.
 Pratt, 1980
It is a written document that systematically describe goals planned,
objectives, content, learning activities, evaluation procedures and so forth.
 Schubert, 1987
The content of a subject, concepts and tasks to be acquired, planned
activities, the desired learning outcomes and experiences, product of culture
and an agenda to reform society make up a curriculum.
 Hass, 1987
A curriculum includes “all experiences that individual learners have in
a program of education whose purpose is to achieve broad goals and related
specific objectives, which is planned in terms of framework of theory, and
research or past and present professional practice.
 Goodland and Su, 1992
It is a plan that consists of learning opportunities fora specific time
frame and place, a tool that aims to bring about behaviour changes in students
as a result of planned activities and includes all learning experiences received
by students with the guidance of the school
 Cronbeth, 1992)
It provides answers to three questions:
1. What knowledge, skills, and values are most worthwhile? 2. Why
are they most worthwhile?
3. How should the young acquire them?

CURRICULUM FROM TRADITIONAL POINTS OF VIEW

Robert M. Hutchins - views curriculum as“permanent studies” where rules of

grammar, reading, rhetoric ( using language effectively to please or
persuade),logic and mathematics for basic education are emphasized. The 3Rs
(Reading, writing, rithmetic) should be emphasized in basic education while liberal
education should be the emphasis in college.

Arthur Bestor- as an essentialist believes that the mission of the school should be
intellectual training, hence curriculum should focus on the fundamental intellectual
disciplines of grammar, literature and writing. It should include mathematics,
science, history and foreign language.

Joseph Schwab- thinks that the sole source of curriculum is a discipline, thus the
subject areas such as Science, Mathematics, Social Studies, English and many
more. In college, academic disciplines are labelled as humanities, sciences,
languages, mathematics among others.

Phillip Phenix- asserts that curriculum should consist entirely of knowledge which
comes from various disciplines.

CURRICULUM FROM PROGRESSIVE POINTS OF VIEW

A progressive view of curriculum is the total learning experiences of the

individual thus a listing of school subjects, syllabi, course of study, and specific
discipline does not make a curriculum.

John Dewey- believes that education is experiencing. Reflective thinking is a

means that unifies curricular elements that are tested by application.

Holin Caswell and Kevin Campbell- viewed curriculum as all experiences

children have under the guidance of teachers.

Othaniel Smith, William Stanley and Harlan Shore- likewise defined

curriculum sequence of potential experiences, set up in schools for the purpose of
disciplining children and youth in group ways of thinking and acting.

Colin Marsh and George Willis- also viewed curriculum as all experiences in the
classroom which planned and enacted by the teacher and also learned by the
students.

CHANGING CONCEPTS OF CURRICULUM

Prescriptive Curriculum - provide us with what “ought” to happen and they are
more often than not take form of a plan, an intended program or some kind of
expert opinion about what needs to take place in the course of study

Descriptive Curriculum- goes beyond the prescriptive terms as they force thought
about the curriculum “not merely in terms of how things ought to be…but how
things are real in classroom” (Ellis, 2004)
Another term that could be used to define the descriptive curriculum is
experience.

WHY IS CURRICULUM IMPORTANT?

 Curriculum is the backbone of whole educational process. Without
curriculum, we cannot conceive any educational endeavor. Thus, the curriculum in
a literal sense, is a pathway towards a goal.

Curriculum is important in education because it helps teachers to deliver an

effective and quality education. A curriculum sets standards, goals and learning
outcomes that enable teachers to judge whether or not students are able to move on
to the next level.
 Teachers develop their own idea;
 Refining and improving them over the years;
 Adapt lessons and syllabi created by other teachers;
 Use curriculum templates and guides to structure their lessons and courses;
 Purchase prepackaged curricula from individuals and companies.

Curriculum is often the object of reforms, intended to either mandate or encourage

greater curricular standardization and consistency across states, schools, grade
levels, subject areas, and courses.

Importance of Curriculum
 The curriculum is the heart of the school system
 There can be no school if there is no Curriculum
 Curriculum is the reason for existence of the school

Curriculum is dynamic as changes occur in society. It must be adaptive to the

changing conditions of the world. Hence, schools need to prepare the human
resources for impending changes.
What is the purpose of the curriculum?

PURPOSE OF THE CURRICULUM ISENCAPSULATED IN THE FOUR

CAPACITIES
To enable each child or young person to be:
1. A successful learner
2. A confident individual
3. A responsible citizen
4. An effective contributor

NATURE OF CURRICULUM IN SCHOOL

1. What educational purpose should the school seek to attain?

(Objectives)
2. What educational experiences can be provided to attain these purposes? ( i.e. the
activities, the subject-matter)
3. How can these educational experiences can be organized effectively to achieve
these purposes?
( e.g. Teacher- centered learning)
4. How can we determine whether or not the expected objectives have been
achieved?
(i.e. using tests, performance observation and other forms of evaluation)

CURRICULUM AS A PROCESS AND AS A PRODUCT

 Curriculum process is a collective term that encompasses all of the
considerations about which curriculum workers ponder and ultimately use to make
choices in the development and evaluation of a curriculum project.

CURRICULUM Development
 Recreating or modifying what is taught to students.
 Understood as a process implying wide range of decisions concerning
learning experiences, taken by different actors at different levels: politicians,
experts, and teachers at the national, provincial, local, school and also
international levels.

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

TOP-DOWN
1. The curriculum presented to the teachers
2. The curriculum adopted by teachers
3. The curriculumassimilated4.The evaluated curriculum
BOTTOM-UP
1. What the society or the parents want
2. Responses provided by teachers in the schools
3. The collection of these responses and the effort to identify some common
aspects
4. The development of common standards and their evaluation.

CURRICULUM AS A PRODUCT

Curriculum products or projects result from curriculum development processes and

provide the bases for instructional decisions in classroom. Curriculum projects
include curriculum guides, course of study, syllabi, resource units, lists of goals
and objectives, and other documents that deal with the content of schooling.

Curriculum guides usually include details about the topics to be taught,

predetermined goals and suggestions for instructional strategies (Ben-Perez, 1990)
Curriculum guidelines furnish information about predetermined learning outcomes
and are generally less complete than curriculum guides. Course of study or syllabi
usually specify the content, the learning outcomes, and time allocations for the
various topics. Sometimes a rationale for the choices of content is included in the
syllabi.

Resource units typically include learning outcomes, suggestions for teaching,

sources of information, and prepared instructional units. List of curriculum goals
and objectives, along with their rationales, are another form of projects.

In conclusion, the term “curriculum” may be said to be total package of what

schools do to make the learners become what society expects them to become,
namely good citizens, who are not only able to understand or learn certain
school subjects, but fully integrate individuals that are able to fit into society and
contribute their own share as well, to the progress of that society.